Although the 442 is another option I believe should also be worked, I also don’t see him experimenting on an official match. I’d also put Gomes behind Almeida and I’d also chose Meireles and Tiago (Moutinho as his sub). Petit is excellent to carry the piano home and used to have a dangerous long distance kick. He lacks some vision, though.

Finishing… Man… The eternal problem, at least we get the guys in Sporting coaching kids to become strikers and not wingers… I mean, if they can produce THOSE wingers, how come they can’t produce a striker…? It takes more skill to make a winger than a striekr…

Pedro if they did go to a 442 formation, personally I would go with Meireles and Tiago in the Middle, both are more versatile than Petit. Strikers would be Almeida and Gomes. In saying that, I don’t believe it will happen, Scolari tends to be conservative and believes in his formation,I see Viana going into Deco’s position as a straight swap, keeping the same formation.

Portugal has enough creative force with Quaresma and Ronaldo attacking, the issue will be the finishing (especially by the strikers), if they take their chances then we’ll all be happy.

U21: I see it as a good thing that the AA team is working with the U21, because I feel it’s how it should on principle. The U21 is the first and foremost “reserve” source, a pre-stage but also a place to get the replacement on the last minute, if needed.

Midfield: When looking at the midfield, I’m more inclined to say we don’t have so much choice, rather than saying we have a lot. Furthrmore, it;s still building, so until we get a stable solution, nothing will be at 100%. Costinha and Maniche aren’t playing anymore, apparently. Also not doing so well at Atletico Madrid. Now, do we have something equivalent, or even better…? I don’t think so. I believe we have excellent promisses but that’s what they are.

R Meireles is playing at a good level. But he’s playing with FC Porto. Not Man Utd… Not that Man Utd is so much better. But Man Utd gets to play much harder teams, much more frequently. And get silverware more often… This counts. Petit plays the ball more than Costinha, also runs more, but everytime I had to chose between one of them, I’d always go for Costinha. It just works/worked, better. Maniche… We don’t really have one guy that is both a defensive mid and one that goes up (Costinha was essential for this, as he always covered his back) and scores on occasion. We don’t really have another #10 like Deco. Everything else just falls short. We don’t play with 2 strikers, so that we can do it when we don’t have a #10. One option less. Tiago plays good, for Lyon… I’m yet to see what he does for PT (I’m being unfair, but I think he could yield a bit more…). Moutinho is very good and arguably the most regular player in Portugal. But he is not really a playmaker. He’s a good mid, a good att mid and usefull anywhere.

Nani will always be used as winger, or similar.

And that’s it…! You think it’s enough…? OK, Deco broke his hand, imagine Viana warms the bench a couple of months at his club, and our team’s backbone is lost… Ah OK, we put Simao as #10, or whatever… Yeah, right… You can do this stunt a couple of times cos Simao is good enough not to embarace us. But well… Hardly a permanent solution.

Now… I feel it’s about time to ask “Whatever happened to Manuel Fernandes”… He went to ENG and…? Is he playing…?

And now without Deco, should Scolari still pursue the Hugo Viana solution or should he do something else? In that case, what…? Another striker filling the midfield with 2 holding mids…? Which ones?

BTW, it’s not good having to beat an opponent we never beat with a weakened team. One that also dies if defeated and immediatelly going to Servia after. It’s never, never, never easy to play in the Balkans. Croatia didn’t loose in Zagreb for the past years. It didn’t against England… Just before WC06, Servia was the best defense in qualification… Yeah… We have to beat them too…

http://www.uefa.com/competitions/euro/news/kind=1/newsid=517629.html?cid=rssfeed&att=index

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