He got injured shortly after scoring Ranger’s first goal. He held on until half-time before being substituted. The lack of a fit Pedro Mendes was noted on the pitch as the boys from Glasgow were served a 1-4 defeat against Unirea Urziceni.

This will mean Queiroz has to resort to an already tried format. Pepe in defensive midfield and Carvalho & Alves as centre-backs. It has worked. It will work again.

The first match will take place on the 14th of November at the Estadio da Luz in Lisbon. 4 Days later we face them on their turf. I would have preferred playing the second game on home ground but let that not be an excuse. We can win. Anytime. Anywhere.

Carlos Queiroz: “We will have to prepare well. They have a very dangerous attack. It is going to be dificult but for us the world-cup has already started”

Miroslav Blazevic (BH coach): “I think the Portuguese are favorites, but they don’t always win. Portugal has great players but I think we have a good chance to win.”

In fact we were the country that scored the most points in this update: 162. Moving up 7 places we finished in the top 10.

This particular ranking has a bit more meaning because it determines the top 4 seed for the play-offs otherwise I pretty much ignore it. Just consider we were 22nd and Greece was 35th just before the Euro 2004 and after-wards neither were in the top 10.

As expected France, Portugal, Russia and Greece are top 4 for the play-offs. Some speculation went into how many places Ukraine would move up following their win over England… a mere 3 places up to 22nd.

1. Brazil (1632pts)
2. Spain (1629)
3. Netherlands (1340)
4. Italy (1215)
5. Germany (1161)
6. Argentina (1103)
7. England (1101)
8. Croatia (1087)
9. France (1049)
10. Portugal (1042)
11. USA (1025)
12. Russia (982)
…
16. Greece (921)
…
22. Ukraine (857)
…
34. Republic of Ireland (755)
…
42. Bosnia Herzegovina (721)
…
49. Slovenia (663)
…
203. San Marino (0)

Four nil. Another one bites the dust.
Next stop: play-offs.

Led by an amazing crowd eager to sing and dance the team through this match, Portugal delivered. Delivered in goals. Delivered in spirit. From the get go we tightened a net around Malta and didn’t ease up until the first 2 were in. I had hoped for 7 I’ll settle with 4.

When I sat down to watch the game I had an ice-pack in one hand and my 5 year-old boys head in the other. We had just returned from soccer practice where he had bumped into a team-mate after scoring a great left-footed goal (the “great” part might be exaggerated but you know how dads are). As he turned to run and celebrate, a big “GGOOOLLLOOOO” on his lips, a team-mate was running towards him for the big celebration hug and… you guessed it… head-on collision. His face went from shear joy to excruciating pain like only a five-year old can do. An enormous bump forming on his forehead. Why do I start this game review with this little story you ask? Because it gave me an ill feeling towards the game. I was driving home thinking how in soccer you sometimes go from shear joy and unshakable certainties to utter disbelief and complete sadness. Would we be able to show the same winning spirit we’ve shown before? Would the Maltese keeper put out a once-in-a-lifetime performance? Would we end the game with 30 shots and no goals? Would this, would that.

Nothing like watching the first few minutes to shake it all off to a safe distance. We came out guns blazing. Good to see Miguel Veloso for Duda. Pedro Mendes keeping his spot. Pepe playing. But wait. Where is Bruno Alves? Bench? That didn’t seem right. But then again what was Queiroz to do? Play Carvalho, Pepe, Alves and Mendes all at the same time? Against Malta? Don’t think so. The initial line-up did indeed seem like a very decent one. Just Ronaldo missing. Small “just”.

Soon the game showed what was in store for the 90 minutes to come. Malta defending. Portugal attacking. They did hold the fort for about 13 minutes. Nani was once again trying very hard to show he’s a very valid CR replacement. Sometimes the lad overdoes it. And sometimes he scores a nice goal. He had had the best opportunities so far and he managed a nice shot just outside the box.

First one was in. 80+ minutes to go if you include stoppage time. We could be looking at a real treat. My mood had already turned considerably. And so had my son’s. Who by the way got to finish quite loudly that word that was on his lips when his soccer practice was so rudely interrupted.

As the rest of the first half unfolded it grew increasingly evident some players were starting to underperform. Meireles with his terrible finishing and showing signs of fatigue (I’ll be positive here and call it fatigue). Bosingwa with some lousy crosses, insisting on dribbles when a cross or a pass was in order, thus loosing the ball way to often. Malta just couldn’t care less we were ahead and continued playing ultra-defensively. 21 Players on half of the pitch (Eduardo naturally didn’t participate in this party) makes for one confusing setup, it just takes out the flow of the game. No box to box plays. No beautiful string of passes from defence to offence. Not my kind of game. No treat after all. And if you had -like me- a 4 hour online-poker tournament the night before it just brings out a beautiful string of… yawns. Nothing like a goal to spice things up and Simão took care of that at the 45th minute.

The second half started off nicely with a very opportune goal from Veloso. The best part wasn’t the easy finishing but the string of passes that led to it. Deco carrying the ball, to Nani, to Liedson, lucky rebound, easy finish for Veloso. An all-in-one goal.

Three nill. Deceiving score. Not at all reflecting the quality of the game. Not that I think you can blame Portugal for it as it is very hard to play with 21 players on less then 50% of the pitch.

At this point (60th minute) Queiroz rightfully thinks it’s time to spare the players that are at risk of seeing a yellow card and miss the play-offs. On came Nuno Assis for Meireles to please the crowd as he plays at Vitória de Guimarães. Edinho for Liedson and 10 minutes later Moutinho for Nani. The game just went on a break. I went into another string of yawns. In my post on the player ratings from the Hungary game I had written Deco has a ON/OFF switch that went OFF at the 66th minute. Well today it went OFF at the 62nd minute. When he saw Meireles walk off to rest and see the game from a different perspective (the bench) it must have triggered the damn switch.

Oh wait. Just as I was thinking Edinho has no grace/style whatsoever he manages to score one! I was thinking along the same lines about Duda a couple of days ago when he crossed one in for Simão to finish! Perhaps I have a gift! Next game I’ll just think they are all utter crap and seconds later I’m sure to be proven wrong! Bingo.

In the end the scoreboard read 4-0. Nice. On to the play-offs.

Possible adversaries:
Slovenia, Ukraine, Bosnia and Ireland.

Preferences anyone? Slovenia seems the weakest but I think Portugal does better against bigger teams so… Ireland? No? Ok Slovenia then.

Player ratings:

Eduardo (?) – I can’t rate a player that didn’t have anything to do except collect the ball every once in a while. If I start rating that I’ll have to get the names of the ball-catchers.

Bosingwa (5) – Disappointing performance. Not much to do defense wise. Lousy crossing. To often chose the wrong option: dribble instead of pass/cross.

Carvalho/Pepe (6) – Solid.

Veloso (6) – Gets one point more then Bosingwa because he participated in the first and scored the third goal but his crossing wasn’t any fun either. This was not a good test to confirm if he’s a good left-back. Probably better then Duda anyway.

Mendes (8) – Another solid performance. Missed one pass at the 89th minute! After these last two matches I’m now very confident we found gold. His presence on the pitch does not go unnoticed. He is always on the move seeking a receiver position. Tries to keep the flow of the game going. No ball hogging. Fast and accurate passing. Man-of-the-match for me.

Meireles (4) – Not his day. Everyone is entitled to one but I’d rather he chose friendly matches and not WC qualifiers. He was strong when we tightened the net around Malta to score. Moving, applying pressure where needed. The usual stuff. Went to the nearest pub to celebrate after the first goal… after just 15minutes? Come’on Raul!

Deco (7) – When he handles the ball you can see he wants to create danger. Always looking for the best spot to place it. Unfortunately he is soooo much slower at doing it these days. At least that is the impression you get from a variety of his plays but the fact is he’s in ALL of the goals we scored tonight! Has to count for something. He has the moves. He has the pace. He has the switch. OFF too early. Again. Come’on Deco!

Simão (7) – One goal one assist. Simão’s stats are getting better and better. He participated a lot in the game tonight and it didn’t seem to me he took his foot of the gas. Glad to see the old Simão is back.

Liedson (6) – His presence on the pitch simply gives us the cutting edge. Always chasing the ball. Eager to score. The way he seems boxed and manages to elude the defenders to set himself up for a dangerous shot is fantastic. Could have done more on some occasions. Left early subbed by Edinho.

Nani (7) – Almost my man-of-the-match. Great goal. Always looking to create danger. Should sometimes keep it simple but goes on a dribbling spree and more than often looses the ball. Has the place. Has the flare. Needs the fast thought process to figure out his teammates positions on the pitch and act accordingly.

Nuno Assis (5) – I just can’t seem to like Nuno Assis’s play style. It’s inconsequential. He’s very strong at getting the foul called. Hogs the ball a bit too much when he should do like Mendes. Keep it simple.

Edinho (4) – I know he scored but the picture of him getting a pass and as he ran next to the ball it looked like he was afraid of it, running away from it. Yes it –the ball- got caught by a defender and he then managed to tripp on his own feet. That picture. It haunts me.

Moutinho (5) – I know he had 20 minutes on the pitch but all I recall is one shot. Did I miss something? I might be rating him unfairly.

Queiroz (7) – I liked the initial line-up. I liked the way they came out guns blazing, not resting until the first one was in. The substitutions were well timed and seemed coherent although their effect was probably not what was expected. He managed to carry us all into the play-offs. I’m not entirely convinced yet he is the man for the job at hand, I’ll just have to wait and see.

October, 14, 2009
Estadio D.Afonso Henriques, Guimarães, Portugal
19:45 Lisbon, London; 14:45 New York

Malta is next up on our menu. I’m confident we will not f things up. I now you are all eager to remind me Sweden had a tough time escaping the island with a win in their bags. But if you look at FIFA’s match review you will notice Sweden had lots of chances and Malta basically “parked the bus”.

It’s a given fact all Malta can hope to achieve is a goalless draw. They will park a double-decker bus in their goal area and we will simply have to tear it apart piece by piece until there is nothing left but 7 goals in the back of the net. Not one less.

If anyone can these 23 can:

Goal-keepers:
Beto (Porto)
Eduardo (Braga)
Rui Patrício (Sporting CP)

Defense:
Bosingwa (Chelsea FC)
Bruno Alves (FC Porto)
Paulo Ferreira (Chelsea FC)
César Peixoto (SL Benfica)
Pepe (Real Madrid CF)
Ricardo Carvalho (Chelsea FC)
Rolando (FC Porto)

Midfield:
Deco (Chelsea FC)
Duda (Malaga CF)
João Moutinho (Sporting CP)
Nuno Assis (Vitória SC)
Miguel Veloso (Sporting CP)
Pedro Mendes (Rangers)
Raúl Meireles (FC Porto)
Tiago (Juventus FC)

Offense:
Liedson (Sporting CP)
Nani (Manchester Utd)
Nuno Gomes (SL Benfica)
Simão Sabrosa (Atlético Madrid)
Edinho (Malaga CF)

Ronaldo as we all know is out injured and Tiago only started training today after his injury.
For this game the good news is Pepe is usable, the odd question being: “And where shall we use him?”
Pedro Mendes deserves to keep his spot in the starting eleven so why not:

Eduardo
Bosingwa — Carvalho — Alves — Pepe
Mendes
Meireles — Deco
Simão — Liedson — Nani

We might even try:

Eduardo
Bosingwa — Carvalho — Alves — Nani
Mendes
Meireles — Deco — Simão
Liedson — Gomes

Somehow I don’t think Queiroz is going to drop Duda now. We’ll just have to wait and see.

FORÇA PORTUGAL!!!!

The horrible tackle by Olympique Marseille’s Diawara during the CL game forced Ronaldo to miss Real Madrid’s game against Sevilla. Real Madrid lost and a lot was written and said about RM’s dependency on CR9. Supposedly recovered for the Portuguese National Team’s game against Hungary past Saturday it only served to worsen the injury and besides missing the game against Malta it now seems likely he wont show up at full strength for the play-off games on the 14th and 18th of November.

Man-of-the-Match:
Simão (8): And at the 9th game there was light. Beauty in motion. Pace and skill. The crowd stood up and cheered. Simão’s critics, myself included, were all screaming for Nani to take his place. He knew he had to shut everyone’s cake-holes. Apparently he had it in him to easily accomplish such task. And he did. First he scored then he created chances and then scored some more. And at the 81st minute left the pitch receiving a greatly deserved standing ovation. The hat is off. Sidenote: strange reaction after scoring our first goal. He seemed disappointed?!

Eduardo (6): One great save in the early stage of the game but then there was that crap exit to intercept a cross at the 46th minute. Made me sooooo uneasy. Still does. Didn’t have anything to do for the entire second half.

Bosingwa (6): Didn’t do his usual runs down the flank except maybe on two occasions. In one of them the ball went straight out. Solid enough in the back.

Duda (5): I would have given him a 4 if it wasn’t for the cross that led to the 3rd goal. His performance was just laden with irregularities. Bad defending resorting to fouls. Lousy crossing. Clearly our weakest link.

Carvalho (6): Discreet performance. Missed a clear chance at the 44th minute to finish off the game earlier.

Alves (7): Every time Hungary tried the direct approach volleying the ball over our midfield trying to find their strikers you would see Alves fly over them fencing off danger. Impressive. Also impressed with his calm when his volley-pass found Liedson for the second goal.

Mendes (8): The search is over. After Costinha left the team we kept testing solutions to fill the void. Pepe was good. Mendes is better. I can’t remember a bad pass. Carvalho’s discreet performance might well be because Mendes held them at a safe distance. He covered a lot of ground. Had Simão not scored that second goal and I would have Mendes top of the list.

Meireles (6): If you look at Meireles’s movements on the pitch you understand why Queiroz (and Jesualdo Ferreira at Porto) like him so much. After passing the ball he always moves into a receiving position. Frequently you will find him next to the striker and reading game headlines from past games it is very frequent you will find his name next to big chances. Unfortunately they are big MISSED chances. It happened this game as well. It wouldn’t surprise me if in most games he was the player that did more miles. He is one of the few players that takes the risk of trying to score from long range shots. Because so far he failed miserably at it the critics turn the volume up a notch. I confess I have mixed feelings about the lad. For comparison’s sake I would like to see Moutinho have a go.

Deco (6): Deco has an ON/OFF switch somewhere. I swear someone sometimes gives him a knock at a certain angle an the switch flips. When the switch is ON he’s a delight and Portugal plays better. When he gets that knock he disappears from the pitch for a while and our game suffers.
When Queiroz subbed Simão for Veloso I felt Deco had nothing more to give. He wasn’t running anymore. His pace was gone. His last effort was a shot at the 66th minute. Switch went OFF shortly after.

Liedson (7): He just doesn’t stop. No ball is lost to his intention of seeing it in the back of the net. With him on the pitch the team seems to really feel there is a deadly striker out there ready to give any ball sent his way the proper direction. In previous games you might find players taking shots themselves perhaps due to the lack of confidence in our striker. But now they seek out Liedson. Our second goal proves this theory. His presence on the pitch I’m sure has some psychological effect on his team mates. 3 Games (209min) 2 goals!

Ronaldo (6): Only 27m on the pitch but enough to leave his mark. His shot/cross allowed Simão to score the 1st goal. He was clearly hyped to play the game. His ankle wasn’t. Misses next game against Malta.

Nani (6): He wants to be Ronaldo so badly. Mind you the kid is full of good intentions. But he just sucks at being Ronaldo and needs to keep things simple. His eagerness to do just one more move has us all frustrated and desiring the real deal back, because that one extra move usually means the ball slips out of control and another opportunity is lost. I can only recall one great shot half way through the second half that got defended by the Hungarian goalkeeper. He has magnificent feet and pace to go with but urgently needs to tone down on the individualism.

Veloso, Nuno Gomes (-): Not enough time on the pitch to properly evaluate.

Carlos Queiroz (7): He took a risk when he placed Pedro Mendes in the starting eleven. His critics would have a field day if it went wrong. He also stuck with Simão Sabrosa. These two reasons alone would suffice for his rating but then there’s the overall team performance. I don’t mind a team that sometimes releases possession to the adversary giving them the illusion of being on top while keeping it very solid at the back only to turn up in critical times of the game. You can’t always dominate from beginning to end. If you do, you might end up thinking the game is won and then suddenly you find 2 more in the back of YOUR net (Portugal 2-3 Denmark), and all the while YOU were dominating and playing beautiful soccer but still have to explain the loss.
The team had 3 weak links: defensive midfield (what we like to call “trinco”), striker and left-back. Queiroz fixed 2 with Liedson and Mendes. If he could only find that LB…

Three games played an important role yesterday towards our final goal:

1) Portugal 3 – 0 Hungary
Obviously this one was our main concern but I’ll get back to it in a paragraph or two.

2) Denmark 1 – 0 Sweden
A draw would suffice but Denmark made sure there remains no doubt as to their merit in qualifying. Congrats to the Danes are in order.

3) Ukraine 1 – 0 England
The importance of this game can only truly be measured if we actually win the next 2 games (Malta and Play-off). Ukraine’s victory against undefeated England (entered the game with 8 games, 8 victories) places them in second place ahead of Croatia with only Andorra to go (9 defeats). Meaning Portugal is now in the top 4 seed for the play-offs, avoiding the likes of France, Russia and Greece.

Back to the game.

We started the game shortly after Denmark scored against the Swedes. The stage was set for a fantastic evening. Second place in the group up for grabs, 50000+ spectators in the stands. What an environment! I was hyped. This was it. Turning point moment.

First surprise was seeing Pedro Mendes in the line-up. Got a last minute call. Only 2 caps. Never played in the starting eleven. And now Queiroz had him playing a very important role. I thought we were past the experiments faze? Mind you I’ve always thought Pedro earned his spot in the team a long time ago and should have had more opportunities to prove he did belong in that starting eleven. Also Simão in the initial line-up was a let down, an expected one. At the starting whistle I wasn’t looking to favorably at Queiroz. Not at all.

Along came the seventh minute and… fantastic save by Eduardo! WTF?! Was that a wake-up call? It was indeed. We picked up the pace and started to press Hungary in their defensive midfield. At the 18th minute when we were just starting to confirm our dominance on the pitch Ronaldo did his magic allowing Simão to finish off what he started.

2 Minutes after the goal Simão got his shot blocked by the keeper. Things were shaping up. Simão was putting in a great effort. Mendes was irreproachable. I was utterly wrong. Queiroz knows his stuff. But then Ronaldo made a sign to the bench asking to be replaced. And shortly after he limped his way off the pitch subbed by Nani. The injury he brought from Real Madrid wasn’t fully cured after all. He will not appear for Portugal against Malta either as it was just confirmed his ankle injury isn’t recoverable on such short notice. There goes any chance of seeing him score in the WC qualifiers. Only the play-off left. Hopefully he will be fit by then.
We were a bit lost on the pitch after this unexpected loss. Perhaps the Hungarian felt a surge of confidence now that Ronaldo was no longer a threat. The last 15 minutes of the 1st half were divided, Hungary had one shot just wide, nearly scratching the post, and Carvalho headed the ball just over the bar on a perfect Deco cross. At the 45th minute we had a Ricardo moment: Eduardo left the goal to intercept a cross only to see the ball headed against the bar by Juhasz. Bloody hell! I thought we were past these Ricardo moments with this new and improved keeper!! My mind keeps playing over and over Greece’s goal in the Euro 2004 final… be gone… now.

As the second half unfolded I grew restless. We needed a second goal to settle our game. If we didn’t score we might retract and invite Hungary to press us against the ropes. Images from the Denmark game at the Estadio da Luz silently crept into my mind. Ah but now we have Liedson! And “Liedson resolve!” is Sporting’s favorite slogan. Works for me. When Bruno Alves got the ball I was yelling “SHOOT!!!” but luckily my voice went unheard and he volleyed the ball to Liedson for a strong header. 2-0. Bagged this succer.

Shortly after the goal I was commenting on Duda’s poor performance when he crossed one in for Simão to finish beautifully. No preparation just fired away into the back of the net.

Good way for Simão to snatch the Man-of-the-Match award and Queiroz to start paving the road to reconciliation with our soccer loving nation.

Group standings with 1 game to go:
Denmark – 21
Portugal – 16
Sweden – 15
Hungary – 13
Albania – 7
Malta – 1

Next games:
Denmark – Hungary (Oct. 14)
Sweden – Albania (Oct. 14)
Portugal – Malta (Oct. 14)

October, 10, 2009
Estadio da Luz, Lisbon, Portugal
20:45 Lisbon, London; 15:45 New York

We are at the gates. Hell or heaven lies beyond.

Once again my confidence levels are renewed and I look upon these 24 lads Carlos Queiroz called up, to carry out everybody’s wishes:

Goal-keepers:
Beto (Porto)
Eduardo (Braga)
Rui Patrício (Sporting CP)

Defense:
Bosingwa (Chelsea FC)
Bruno Alves (FC Porto)
Paulo Ferreira (Chelsea FC)
César Peixoto (SL Benfica)
Pepe (Real Madrid CF)
Ricardo Carvalho (Chelsea FC)
Rolando (FC Porto)

Midfield:
Deco (Chelsea FC)
Duda (Malaga CF)
João Moutinho (Sporting CP)
Nuno Assis (Vitória SC)
Miguel Veloso (Sporting CP)
Pedro Mendes (Rangers)
Raúl Meireles (FC Porto)
Tiago (Juventus FC)

Offense:
Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid CF)
Liedson (Sporting CP)
Nani (Manchester Utd)
Nuno Gomes (SL Benfica)
Simão Sabrosa (Atlético Madrid)
Edinho (Malaga CF)

Ronaldo, Bosingwa, Duda and Tiago are injured but apparently recoverable for Saturday’s match (Tiago being the bigger doubt). These injuries also account for the last minute calls of Pedro Mendes and Edinho, both not in Queiroz’s original list. Add to the injured Pepe’s 1 game ban on yellow cards and things might start to look a bit grim.

As usual Queiroz has some surprises on the list such as Paulo Ferreira, Cesar Peixoto, Nuno Assis and Pedro Mendes. I am glad to see Pedro Mendes finally in the squad. He definitely deserves it. A bit skeptical about Paulo Ferreira, Cesar Peixoto and Nuno Assis. Paulo hasn’t played a single minute for Chelsea in the EPL. Did Queiroz watch Chelsea’s reserves game against Wolverhampton Wanderers (Paulo captained the team to a narrow 1-0 win)? Nuno stands out in a sub-average Guimaraes team but I can’t see him even making the bench for the next two games. Perhaps Queiroz just wants to see him kick the ball around during the next few days…

Braga is leading the Portuguese league with an impressive run, 7 victories in 7 games. 2 Players have so far contributed a lot this: Hugo Viana and João Pereira. I would not be as skeptical if CQ had called them up instead.

When Cesar Peixoto was at Porto I really had him picked for the left-back spot of the Selecção. He was playing very well and then suddenly he got injured and was dismissed by Co Adriaanse. He regained his form at Braga after a disappointing attempt at relaunching his career in Spain. Did some above average games but never got the call. Now after playing 3 below average games at Benfica he made it into the nation’s top 24 players ?! I wonder if the “Benfica Stars Fund” has anything to do with it, and if his name will show up there in the near future. Hope not.

Also Quim for Beto. Beto is a fine keeper (perhaps better then Quim) but Quim is first choice at Benfica and sees action every weekend…
In the end none of them really matter for the line-up of the upcoming games. Can’t see Queiroz sub Meireles/Tiago for Mendes/Assis, Bosingwa/Duda for Ferreira/Peixoto or Eduardo for Beto.

Press comments:

Queiroz: “We know our obligations. Two games at home and we will win them.”

Eduardo: “We are confident we will win. We badly need these victories. We’ll have maximum concentration and believe they will happen.”

Simão: “We don’t know what to expect from Hungary. We’ll have to perform well and win.”

Koeman: “We can still qualify fo the 2010 world-cup. It is not an impossible mission, we’ll keep hope alive until the last game.”

Sweden plays Denmark in Copenhagen and the result will be known before our game starts. Let us hope Denmark shows up for the game and hold them at least to a draw. If Sweden wins… they won’t.

If it was up to me:

Eduardo
Bosingwa — Carvalho — Alves — Duda(?)
Meireles
Tiago — Deco
Ronaldo — Liedson — Nani

FORÇA PORTUGAL!!!!

The best thing that can be said about this game is “we won” everything else was looked at in utter disbelief.

I must be completely oblivious to what exactly Hungary needed to keep alive any hope of qualifying for this worldcup because it looked like they couldn’t care less about the result and any outcome, except loosing to Portugal would be a major victory! And when we scored they changed there objective to “not loosing to Portugal by more then one goal”. The game was played on a pitch that looked like my backyard… laden with irregularities. Seemed hand picked for playing an adversary such as Portugal. Down by one goal from the 10th minute and we still had to call them out to our side of the pitch. All Hungary did was hog the midfield with all they had and wait… yep… wait… and wait some more… and when we got nearer play a very physical game bordering violent with the cunning blessing of the referee. What a dick.

Mind you Hungary is a tough opponent. Very tough. From today’s match it’s easy to assume what’s in store for the next game… park the bus in front of the goal and wreck Portugal’s nerve from the first minute hoping a venomous counter-attack gets the job done.

We played beautifully against Denmark and were down one goal at half-time. We got down and dirty, mistreated the ball against Hungary and were up one goal at half-time. Go figure.

I had a knot in my stomach the entire game always expecting Hungary to score a fluke goal out of shear bad-luck from one of our defenders with 2 or 3 lucky rebounds mixed in. Queiroz did the usual lets-defend-this-goal tactic which has failed so miserably before. I’m still in disbelief it actually worked out this time. Nobody managed to win the midfield with an unbelievable amount of missed passes. We simply couldn’t string 3 passes together. And what happened with Tiago today hogging the ball on so many occasions? Did he read my previous game’s post and decided he would be able to pull a couple of Deco moves out of his hat? He played it very simple against Denmark. Received the ball and quickly fed it to Deco or Meireles. I had commented on it negatively although I did mention it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Now I know it wasn’t a bad thing. He can take comfort from the fact Meireles and Deco partnered in this sordid affair.
After an entire first half of this I was dismayed to see Queiroz sub Deco with Simão. The game was screaming for Maniche! Screaming! But… Maniche wasn’t on the bench was he? Nope. Maniche was as dismayed as I was sitting uncomfortably in the stands! Ok then who did we have that could win us the midfield battle? Moutinho was on the bench. He doesn’t have the strongest build but Simão isn’t exactly built like Arnold Schwarzenegger either. Come to think of it the lads are very similar in appearance. Oh well sometimes playing ugly wins you games and this was clearly the case.

We ended the game seeing Hungary desperately shoving the ball into our box in futile attempts to score. The knot grew tighter and tighter. Luckily no fluke goal appeared. No unlucky rebounds. And I thought we lacked scoring skills. But is my calculator not adding up right because I had us needing to score more goals to level out the goal difference disadvantage we have in case we tie in second place with Sweden?! Queiroz must have IBM’s Deep Blue doing his math! That freaking computer did beat Kasparov so what do I know. Fuck it.

A quick note on this night’s pathetic refereeing. There. Said it.

I can already hear some of the more ferocious critics of Portugal say we played crap and don’t deserve to go to South Africa. What do they understand?! Not a damn thing. You have to look at the entire picture of these qualifiers to fully understand exactly what happened and the game today is paramount to this understanding. This overall picture leads to one simple conclusion: Every effing opponent in this group is scared shitless of Portugal! I haven’t seen one single opponent (I mean it! Not one!) that played us head-on to win, even when winning was mandatory (as was the case today). Not Hungary, not Sweden and certainly not group leaders Denmark. And does Sweden deserve it more then us? They won against Hungary with a lucky rebound goal in the last minute and repeated the dose against Malta (MALTA FFS!) with a lucky late own-goal by a Maltese defender! I hope luck has run out for them and when they face Denmark next month it could very well show. And speaking of Denmark… excellent draw! Thank you Albania! Next months Denmark-Sweden will be a thriller! Best of luck for Denmark!

Group standings with 2 games to go:
Denmark – 18
Sweden – 15
Portugal - 13
Hungary – 13
Albania – 7
Malta – 1

Next games:
Denmark – Sweden (Oct. 10)
Portugal - Hungary (Oct. 10)
Denmark – Hungary (Oct. 14)
Sweden – Albania (Oct. 14)
Portugal - Malta (Oct. 14)

I’m starting to plan my trip to Lisbon on the 10th. Like Juca (national coach in 1986) said before we faced Germany (qualifying for Mexico 86): “Let me dream!”