Danny/Silvio out again, Bosingwa retires?

Alright a 0-0 away draw is OK….Wasn’t very reassuring though

Not assuring at all for me… I’m dissapointed. I would have been OK with anything but a 0-0 draw or a victory from Bosnia.

First scoreless game under Paulo Bento, if nobody noticed.

Posted from  Portugal

Who was the fagget that removed my comment to that Bosnian peice of shit?

Also a 0-0 tie is good. Actually really good. Bosnia could have scored with that break away but luckily the field wasnt only affecting us. Good display. I liked Veloso. Hated Postiga. The usual.

I couldn’t watch the whole game, but I suppose that the field’s condition did have a lot of influence this night. I hope it’s all that prevented us from scoring. But some of the finishing (especially the misses by Postiga) is still underwhelming.

Oh well, guess we’ll have to decide it in Lisbon. We should be more careful now, because Bosnia’ll play better away than at home. If Pepe is anything like this night (simply superb) and the Estádio da Luz’s pitch helps us play actual football, then we’re good. Of course, Bento also has to worry about Bosnia’s better away exhibitions, but we can’t for our lives fail in Estádio da Luz. Its impenetrability should keep going next Tuesday, otherwise it’s time to boot for Paulo Bento.

Posted from  Portugal

The thing is Bosnia were playing with their secondary defence (three of their main defenders were suspended) and we didn’t exploit that at all.

I’m not sure a 0-0 tie is a good result considering we have no away goal. A 1-1 result in Luz is game over for Portugal.

Posted from  Netherlands

Result-wise, 0-0 away definitely isn’t the best. That’s why I said that I would have been satisfied or barely satisfied with anything but a Bosnia’s victory or 0-0. We can’t afford to concede, or our attack will definitely have to show up. We also can’t have another 0-0 in Lisbon, that’s just as awful.

Posted from  Portugal

Bosnia’s first shot at our goal was at the 71st minute! And they were playing at home for Christ sake! What does this tell you about their offensive power? They were lucky to go to HT with a clean sheet. Sure we couldn’t string 4 passes together but they barely did 2.

Their 15minutes worth of fame came from that 71st minute up to the 86th. Poetic justice that they fumbled up their best chance on account of the ball jumping up in that mud-pool (just like it had done with CR).

I just don’t see us losing to them in Lisbon. I don’t. Call it excessive optimism. Or just agree they have a crappy team.

Posted from  Portugal

We dominated the game until the last minutes. Honestly, if Pepe plays like this again, we’re not going to lose. I truly believe we will win on Tuesday. We were away in a hostile environment on a shitty pitch.

Let’s hope that our players truly give their 110% and win the game on tuesday.

if both teams play like this neither team deserves to qualify fans to deserve more then this. however the longer the legs go scoreless the better for us you seen how the Portugese p[layers were getting on each other has if they expected to buffalo us, all the pressure is on you guys and jusding from your past a la 2004 we will be alright. I din’t see 1 portugese fan what happen cat got your tongue we will be in Lisboa in full regalya.

Posted from  United States

Forca Bosnia Portugal noa via nada mais boa note.

Posted from  United States

Forca Portugal, The ball is now in our court with homefield advantage. We controlled 80% of the game and Pepe shut down your offense single handedly. We will crack your defense one way or the other you can count on that

http://www.zonalmarking.net/2011/11/11/bosnia-0-0-portugal-tactics/

Must read, one of the replies by ZM is something I fully agree with:
“but I can’t see how they (Portugal) could win Euro 2012 like this.”

Posted from  Netherlands

I fully agree playing like we have done for the last 5 (!) games won’t get us anything at the Euro 2012. Not even semis. But if you recall all the dreadful play we had coming up on the Euro 2004 (first game of the event included)… it doesn’t worry me that much.

As always it’s the striker position that is getting us these piss-poor results.
But then again… WE HAVE EUROPE’S BEST STRIKER!!!!
How long will it take for Paulo Bento to realize he needs to scrap Postiga, give CR the striker role and get Quaresma or Varela on the wing?

Doesn’t:
Quaresma – Ronaldo – Nani
instead of:
Ronaldo – Postiga – Nani
make more sense?

Posted from  Portugal

Carvalho and Bosingwa incidents are not really related, though similar.

Carvalho put on the prima-donna and rejected playing because he was not on the starting 11. Bascilcly he was pushing P Bento and he really didn´t have any option other than saying with him Carvalho won´t play. After that Carvalho came forward apologising, but not to P Bento. Actually putting the knife even deeper by insulting him. Under these conditions, no coach would ever call him again. If he would, he would loose the respect of everybody. Plus if he would, he would really not be any leader.

Needless to say this loss is huge in the Selecção because he is one of the best centre defenders in the world. Also needless to say leaving the team a couple of days before a vital match would in itself be enough to just close the door forever, because this is a clear sign he didn´t give a f*ck about the team but only about himslef.

“Bosingwa-affair”, nobody ever understood exactly what happened and opinions vary. Fact remains that P Bento stopped calling him after certain statements on a newspaper, many claim are false. Recently the press was putting a lot of pressure on P Bento because of Bosingwa and he stated Bosingwa didn´t have all the emotional conditions. After this Bosingwa also left, saying would P bento he won´t play Selecção again (we all kinda realized it was the other way around, with P Bento Bonsingwa would not play again).

To me this smells like “cold-war” between player-big-star vs coach. Again, Bonsingwa´s timing to slam the door, to me, would also be enough to shut him down forever. If he had any brain, he would wait for the play-offs quiet, and resign after tuesday. Actually, if POR doesn´t qualify he´d be in a strong position. If POR would qualify he could not be blamed for hindering the team, like he is now and rightfully so.

Finishing note: M Veloso played very good as holding mid. Pepe did a great match. We still have a huge striker problem. I still ask myself whether POR shouldn´t try using Danny behind the striker; Veloso or Meireles as holding mid; Moutinho, Micael or Martins in the middle of the park. Nani and Ronaldo on the wings, Pereira/Silvio right-back; Coentrão /? left-back.

POR FPF were a bunch of wossies not carrying on the protest against playing in that pitch and conditions, etc. That was really not acceptable.

That said, Paulo, it´s about time you realize the name is João Pereira and not João Periera…

Posted from  Netherlands

@Miguel

i fully agree with you on the “scrap Postiga” thing …. but do you really thing Quaresma should be our winger for the Euros (if we get there that is)… i used to admire him, but i seriously feel that he’s no longer that reliable anymore… i prefer Ronaldo to stay at the wing but to find another good striker…. I MEAN COME ON, THERE IS NO BETTER STRIKER IN THIS COUNTRY THAN POSTIGA?????? i seriously get pissed everytime i think of this… if we had a striker like Chicharito for example, our attack will be much better… someone who doesn’t have to have techniacal skills, just someone that knows how to stand in the right spot at the right time.

The terrible pitch defintily prevented both teams from playing a short passing game and it defenitely affected us more than them. Pepe was defeintely the man of the match and Veloso was great as the holding midfielder. Joao Moutinho and Raul Meireles worked tirelessly, but they played way too deep and eventually resorted to playing hopeful long balls towards Postiga and Ronaldo.

In the second leg we’ll be playing on a good pitch and we’ll have the support of 65,000 screaming Portuguese. In order to win, Moutinho and Meireles need to control the midfield with their short passing, and support the striker with runs from deep(Meireles). Coentrao will have to attack more and Ronaldo and Nani will need to see a lot of the ball.

Almeida should also get the start even though he’s very inconsistent. Almeida is much more involved in Portugal’s attacks than Postiga and he also uses his physicality to great effect.

My prediction, a strong 2-0 victory. Control the midfield and we’ll win.

Enough with the terrible pitch comments the county was full of mines not to look ago and war turn what do you expect? Not everyone cares about soccer like in Portugal sure we have our fans but its not the only thing people live for, sure Portugal has some better stadiums but if you went to a club like Pacos Ferr I’m sure you wouln’t see such a good pitch, but than again anyone team can win our leaugue yours is so corrupt everyone knows Porto, Sporting, or Benfica are going to win the rest of the teams are shit.

Posted from  United States

i know the portuguese league is no where close to the best in Europe and the world… but to compare it to the bosnian league? Come on with all due respect… you just can’t do that :/

The pitch was a reason the ball play was not as effective as we wanted to be and that is not just our alibi, it’s also a fact.

@ahmad
I like Quaresma. Besiktas supporters LOVE him. The thing is Quaresma thinks and acts as a winger. He knows what he’s good at. CR on the other hand knows he’s a brilliant striker and as such tends to try and finish more then getting in the cross. If you review most of his goals this season at Real Madrid you will see they didn’t come from runs from the wing into the box. They came from crosses he finished, penalty-kicks and free-kicks. He is being “fed”. Not so much the feeder anymore. Angel Di Maria has double the assists CR has at the moment in the Spanish League. CR is Real Madrid’s top scorer. IMO this leads to the conclusion:
RQ – CR -Nani
is better then
CR – HP – Nani

@BosnianPride
The fact is there are MUCH better pitches in Bosnia. The sorry excuse to play at Zenica was the supporters… bah. They went dead silent from the 10th to the 70th minute!

And what can you say about supporters that prefer to shout out Messi’s name to try and get on an adversary’s nerves instead of yelling out their own country’s name? If Messi was Bosnian I’d understand but as it stands all those supporters might as well be singing “We’re pathetic! Ohhh sooo pathetic! Messi! Messi! Messi!”

As for the league comparison… pathetic as well. So what you mean to say is the Spanish league is corrupt because everyone knows either Real Madrid or Barcelona will win. And the Premiere league has seen only 3 winners for the past 16 years… Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea. The Dutch league was dominated for decades by Ajax, PSV and Feyenoord (Twente and AZ finally stepped in). The list goes on. All corrupt leagues no doubt.

As for the upcoming game… 3-1.

Posted from  Portugal

You didn’t show me shit outside the fact that you dominated play us usual but couldn’t put the ball in net as usual. DID you see the look on you guys faces after 20 minutes of a drawless game, as if you were going to come here and bufallo us please. IF you expect to just show up in lisbon like you did in the 2004 finals you will get the same result a 0-1 loss . I never seen a team luck at each other and fake faces and argue with each other, remember the longer 0, 30, 40 minutes the longer it goes scoreless the better for Bosnia even the goal keeper looked scared to field simple balls. No more excuses its on your pitch cry babies.

Posted from  United States

we dominated as usual… hopefully next match in Lisbon, we’ll manage to put the ball in the net.

Seriously all we need is one goal, it’s not like BIH will score anytime in this century.

@Miguel;
Honestly I think Queresma is as bad as Postiga if not worse, he’s all flash but with no substance (at least Postiga occasionally scores). Worse yet he is also an highly individualistic player. Team play is Portugal’s worst aspect adding Queresma would make it even worse.
There are other wingers we could use, heck even Danny as winger would be better than Queresma.
What about that Portuguese winger who got called up for these matches and plays in Greece? I know the Greeks wanted him for their national team.

Posted from  Netherlands

@ Joao

My thoughts EXACTLY…

@João
When RQ was at Porto he displayed a lot of team play and finishing capabilities. He had the most assists and was voted the best player in the League. Now at Besiktas (after some failed experiences at Inter and Chelsea) you won’t find ONE supporter agreeing with you (ok perhaps one or two – has to happen statistically). Yes there is a lot of flash and some lack of substance but he has shown more then Vieirinha has so far. Agree the kid is looking good in Greece, and I wouldn’t mind seeing more of him in a couple of friendlies (Bento seems to agree with me as he didn’t even make the bench – but what do I know). Danny? Don’t like. The ONLY above average game I’ve seen him do for the NT was the 3-0 win against Mozambique in a friendly before the last WC. That was it. Yes he’s done good for Zenit. For Zenit. Worse then Postiga, but that’s just my opinion.

Posted from  Portugal

@Miguel

I like RQ – CR – Nani idea and I watched the video showing Cronaldo’s 100 goals for Real Madrid but based from what I saw he has excellent striker support inside the box. If we can get more overlap crosses/passes from Coentrao and Pereira then Nani can act as a 2nd striker to stretch out those central defenders which helps prevent CR being left isolated or double teamed. We need to attack through the middle to provide those open crosses though.

Posted from  Canada