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Portugal
Bosnia Herzegovina 0 – 1 Portugal : Time to celebrate!
Comments(36)
South-Africa here we come! Fully deserved it too. Victory is ours!
That is all that really matters. Everything else is just ingredients to make the end result more tasty. But except for the cook who knows the exact way to mix them all up what matters to you is how it tastes SO GOOD!!! How many times did you go into the kitchen and congratulate the chef? Not many.
Well it is time to congratulate Carlos Queiroz. Well done man! At times you had us in the opposite corner but in the end you came through for us. Looking at the ingredients you had at your disposal I can’t but acknowledge there’s enormous merit to be had for this moment of glory. The hat is off.
When I drove home like a madman trying to get in time for the starting whistle I was hearing on the radio Deco was on the bench replaced by Tiago. Perhaps he didn’t recover from the injury he picked up last Saturday? I think not. Queiroz has this gene that forces him to try and show how much of a tactical genius he really is. At least that’s what this gene keeps telling him. There is always room for surprise with Queiroz. Had expected some change. But we had all hoped it would occur with at least one of the two weak links who carry the names Duda and Ferreira. But no, they were still in the starting line-up.
Oddly enough I didn’t get a bad feeling about this. A lot was said about the horrible condition of the pitch so this swap made perfect sense to me. Deco isn’t cut out for a match against an opponent that most likely will play a physical game, specially not on a pitch that bad.
It was also good to learn we would stick with our 4-3-3 attacking formation. Yesterday Queiroz had said we would play to win. I was unsure if he was playing mind games. But with this line-up it was clear we would be not be defending the result brought from Lisbon. Good stuff.
When our national anthem was played you could barely hear anything with all the noise the host supporters did. Did we do the same in Lisbon? I hope not. I find it very disrespectful. Something I immediately made sure my five year old boy knows. When the Italian referee Roberto Rosetti blew the whistle I had given up trying to sit down. This is it. Portugal! Portugal! Portugal! Me and my kid were jumping around frantically. Good vibes filled the air. Show time.
It didn’t take long to realize Bosnia was betting on the direct approach to our goal. Very bad home-work Mr. Blazevic. I could see Carvalho, Alves and Pepe just taking turns at sweeping the area. Too easy. Unfortunately it also became evident we would miss a good amount of passes on such an incredible pitch. Lets call it “batatal” from here on shall we? It immediately dimmed my expectations on watching an enjoyable match. How can FIFA sanction a game on a batatal you will be hard pressed to find on any 10th level soccer club in Portugal? Since Bosnia had opted for the shoot-the-ball-forward-and-pray-for-luck approach it obviously didn’t hinder them a bit.
The first half came and went and all that was left to show for it was a great chance created by Meireles. Hasagic managed to put the Bosnian meltdown on hold. I had commented yesterday on another post the only thing I find lacking in Meireles is the lack of goals to support his game. His positioning is sublime. I’ve said it before: the way he moves into a receiving position after passing the ball is simply unmatched by any player in the team. He passed the ball to Tiago and immediately moved to the empty spot ready to carry on, shoot in this case. Unfortunately a big missed chance to get ahead.
Half-time. 0-0
My wife in her infinite soccer wisdom says something like “it’s looking very bad for us isn’t it?”. She must have glanced 2 or 3 times at the big screen. “No its actually going reasonably well. They are clueless and we could already be ahead” I told her.
Well the second half showed us more of the same. Except this time Meireles did make good for his initial failure and netted the ball with disconcerting ease. The house came down. Take that! South Africa here we come! Yaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhooooooooo.
After a firm slap on the wrist from hubby for waking up my baby girl I finally sat down and watched the Bosnian meltdown. Players loosing their cool. Red card. Supporters throwing all sorts of stuff at the referee (even hitting Pjanic in the process). Disgraceful. I’m sure many will blame this on the ref and FIFA wanting Portugal at the WC bla bla bla bla
The fact is Bosnia Herzegovina showed talent only very sparsely through Dzeko and Pjanic. The only two players I found note worthy. Another thing that stood out was the incredible inability to shoot corners into the box. Almost always too short, once or twice too long, never were it should. Never. Do they practice or just get together half an hour before the game starts?
The match ended with 10 man Bosnia trying to prevent us from scoring again. And despite several good opportunities (Edinho managed to blunder an amazing chance from a Tiago pass) the scoreboard remained locked at 0-1. Time to celebrate!
When I took on the challenge to write for the Portugal blog here at worldcupblog.org in May this year I was confident we would get this far. Things looked grim and we (Selecção Fans) had to endure an enormous amount of crap from a legion of gin-rummy lovers that would rather fall asleep watching the likes of Bosnia Herzegovina at the World Cup then a team that actually knows how to produce a thrill-filled match. Well there’s a phrase from a movie that pops to mind. Not a particularly good movie but I often think of it when I see someone in pain. Robocop 1. When the-soon-to-be-robocop gets his hand shot off the vilain goes (and here you have it):
DOES IT HURT!? DOES IT HURT!?
Well? Does it? Good.
Fifth consecutive win during which we scored 10 goals and conceded none. Where will we stop?
Player Ratings:
Eduardo (7): Great saves and always looked solid coming out. Fifth game with a clean sheet. Nice.
Ferreira (7): Was that really Ferreira? Amazing. Very solid defending. Very good going up the batatal.
Alves & Carvalho (8): Masters of their domain. Finally this combo starts showing they ARE able to work together.
Duda (6.5): Just one fuck-up makes me give him half point less then Paulo. All in all a solid performance. Finally.
Pepe & Tiago (8): They held the Bosnians at a distance. Did so many recoveries. Great stuff.
Meireles (9): Man-of-the-Match. Not just for the goal. For the entire display of skill. What a work horse. His positioning makes all the difference. The chances he creates are amazing. Had he scored a deserved second goal and I would have given him my first ever 10.
Simão (6.5): Worked hard to help Duda and tried hard to create scoring opportunities. Unfortunately the batatal hindered his game-style in a big way. Also the team seemed to channel offense mostly through Nani.
Nani (7.5): As always he gave it everything he’s got on the Bosnian batatal. As always he often needs to lift his head and opt to surrender the ball to a team mate instead of trying to take on just-one-more. He did just that when he assisted Meireles for the goal. Great stuff.
Liedson (6.5): Another player that just can’t stop running. Unfortunately he didn’t contribute a lot to any of the clear-cut scoring opportunities. Seemed a bit lost out there today and did a couple of unnecessary fouls.
Edinho (5): Came on for Nani at the 73rd minute. Did a couple of runs down the right flank to no real consequence. Got one shot off defended by the keeper but managed to blunder a pass from Tiago with the goal wide open. Incredible. It looked like he blamed the batatal.
Deco, Veloso (-): Not enough time on the batatal to properly evaluate.
Displaying the most recent 25 comments from a total of 36 comments.
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Forca Portugal. Im so happy and have to take back all the cruel things I have said about CQ. However we need C Ronaldo and Boswinga back in this team and Almeida for Edinho. How about Mendes for Dudua ? Im now looking forward to CQ’s squad and hope it contains some surprises. Forca Portugal.
Posted from 
Hong Kong
Como esperado PORTUGAL ganhou!
Ainda soube melhor a vitoria nestas condições…
Um abraço as nossas tropas na Bosnia.
This ambient in bosnia shows the kind of people they are and they need to improve if they want to be civilized and compet in further footbal competitions.
But how espected Portugal win and the victory tasts better in this condictions.
Maybe theres more to CQ than meets the eye :p sorry CQ xD
We need to learn how to finish chances. I believe that is the difference between us and the ‘big’ teams. They TAKE their chances. We are there…I watched the game, and I was so happy after winning that I didn’t actually celebrate. I just stood there trying to process what happened. Ever since the 3-2 loss to the Danes….All I felt Queiroz was saying was tons and tons of bullshit. Finally, it’s here. I wish I could’ve just hybernated through all the qualifying stage stuff and woke up during the play offs.
As painful as it is for me to say, Meireles played very well indeed. Which annoys me because Maniche is now virtually out of the squad.
Posted from 
United Kingdom
Check out this interesting article about the determination of the group stage pots for the Dec. 4 drawing. I’d personally like to see us draw S. Africa (fingers crossed on that one), France (let’s face our akilies heal straight-away while their confidence is low) or Argentina (Ronaldo v. Messi) in the group stages.
Also, the new FIFA rankings come out tomorrow so it’ll be interesting to see where we land.
@Sergio…I reckon we might go into pot 1 and France into 2. Hard to believe they are actually in that pot, tbh.
@Miguel
“I’m sure many will blame this on the ref and FIFA wanting Portugal at the WC bla bla bla bla”
I think everyone will be complaining about France–handball, so they won’t even notice this game.
Posted from United Kingdom
Except France has an higher FIFA ranking and it was second in the previous world cup (Portugal was fourth) France will definitely be in the first pot.
But they struggled in the 2008 Euro; surely that counts for something.
Posted from United Kingdom
Well considering we’re only separated by 7 points I wouldn’t be surprised if we leap-frogged France in the rankings tomorrow and thus shoot us into the 1st pot. That being said, I’m not convinced FIFA or the world for that matter consider us a Pot 1 caliber team…not yet anyways.
In my opinion, Netherlands should be in Pot 1 and both France and Portugal in Pot 2 but I doubt it’ll go down that way.
We shall see.
hm…I agree for the most.I just don’t agree about fan and referee thing.
You whistled thru our anthem as well.
And the ref was awful.Maybe you didn’t see it but he gave early 2 yellow cars to 2 defenders(for no reasons) which he knew was crucual.Your every attack would be either red card or goal-so choose.
When you scored goal,he started insanity.Come on,every touch between Dzeko and Portugal player was a foul.Not to say Salihovic’s red card…Nani should have goten 10 by now if that was a red card.Bruno Alves wanted to kick a referee at the beggining of 2 half but Carvalho stopped him and Bruno was at his face,and that wasn’t a yellow card?
I’m not saying referee is guilty for loss,you were excellent team at this game,I just don’t see why do you need referee on your side when you don’t need him.
But I must say,4 out of 5 best players were missing last night and you still score only 1 goal,I wonder what would happen if FIFA haven’t changed the rule about yellow card immediatly after Piennar drew Bosnia and Portugal together…
IF you think that every one gets equal chance,you are wrong,big teams are in a huge advantage…if you don’t believe check out France’s goal against Ireland-THAT IS DISCRASE!!!
I agree with Sergio. The Netherlands should go into pot 1 and Portugal together with France into the second. It makes sense with their current ranking. Even if Portugal gets passed France in tomorrow’s updated ranking.
I DON’T want Portugal to draw any adversary our players might consider inferior. Please no South Africa, New Zealand, Japan, North or South Korea, Honduras, Algeria, Nigeria, Cameroon or Côte d’Ivoire.
I want them to face every match with that wanting-to-prove-I’m-better-attitude. No slacking.
@spaha
Since the 2006 WC I’ve felt most referee’s did more to harm Portugal then anything else. Somehow we got so much bad press on account of the supposed diving of our players (British media leading the pack) that some of it rubbed off on the referees affecting their judgement. I do admit yesterday’s match saw a referee that finally called every foul that had to be called. We finally weren’t penalized. But we weren’t favoured either. Simão got a yellow card for stepping (I believe accidentally) on one of your players and got a yellow card. One of yours did the same 3 minutes later to Pepe and got nothing. Shit happens.
Posted from 
Portugal
The truth is portugal draws more fouls because portugal has more ball possession, and many of our players (ronaldo, deco, nani & simao) have no problem dribbling the ball into defenders (thus legitimately drawing a foul)
The only thing I don’t like to see is them staying down and rolling over in pain…. but on the other hand refs are supposed to protect players from systematic & continuous fouling, and I’ve never seen them fill that role when it comes to the portuguese team.
It angers me when so called “football fans” rather see a defender get away with a foul than an attacking player showcase the skill which they’ve worked so hard to forge.
Also, i have a problem with England being in a pot 1 ahead of portugal. i still don’t understand their higher ranking given the results over the last few major tournaments.
Holland has a slightly better case, but again looking at the results of the last few tourneys i feel portugal should (slightly) edge them out.
Anyway UEFA rankings have been released today, we’re 7th that means we’ll definitely be top seeded for the Euro 2012 qualification groups.
And the FIFA ranking has been released as well and I’m shocked…
Portugal are 5th 
higher than Germany, France, Argentina and England.
@Miguel Cameroon, Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire are considered the three best African teams and certainly are no push overs. Cameroon is currently 10th, Côte d’Ivoire is 16th but they played a 2-2 friendly against Germany. We’ve lost every match against Germany since 2000.
CONGRATS PORTUGAL !!
Actually in this game I’m personally assess if Portugal can win against the Bosnian only 1 goal only because Portugal is not complete without Cristiano Ronaldo .. just one word from me is for Portugal congratulations!
Posted from 
Australia
congratulations! see you in south africa.
In these two games with Bosnia, I noticed that Portugal players got very tired and very weak after 80 min. They gathered in the penalty area and defend themselves. Bosnia was unlucky in the first game when they could score at least 3 goals. Bosnia is physically weak team. But in World Cup this will hurt Portugal against physically strong teams. I think in euro qualifications Portugal will struggle because they should replace veterans with younger players. This same happened to France after leaving Zidan, Thuram, Makélélé, and Viera. France did struglle in this transaction of players.
We want to congratulate Portugal to be in South africa next year.
We ar the best time in the world.
Thanks for this
Posted from Portugal
@ leo
I don’t see any way that Bosnia could have scored 3 goals in the first leg. If you give them the Crossbar(s) & Post as goals that’d be 2. I think there was another half chance, but eduardo made the save.
On the other hand Portugal missed many of their chances. I think 1-0 was a fair result, but perhaps 2-1 for portugal would’ve been more indicative of the play & chances by both teams.
Strange that UEFA has Portugal 7th in europe but FIFA has them 4th in the world.
UEFA uses a different ranking system from FIFA, UEFAs ranking is more fair since it includes more factors.
Posted from 
Canada
@ Leo
That’s because Queiroz used (essentially) the EXACT same squad in pretty much the last 5 Portugal games. So players would be tired after 80 minutes.
Posted from United Kingdom
I just reviewed the final 15 min. of the game because I have no idea where Leo got the idea we gathered in the penalty area and defended.
After 80min Deco came on and we had 3 goal scoring opportunities.
Hasagic defended shots from Edinho and Bruno Alves and Edinho had that incredible miss over the cross-bar. Just one shot from Dzeko.
Posted from Portugal
@ Dom
I don’t think the UEFA rankings are more fair than FIFA at all. I wouldn’t put Croatia or England above Portugal based on results from the last 4 years.
On the other hand i wouldn’t put Portugal as high as #5. I think both systems are flawed. I suppose that’s what happens when you try to rank teams from all over`the world and they don’t share anywhere near the same opponents.
UEFA boosts about how the new system ensures “sporting balance and fairness” stating: “The new system reflects better the real strength of each national team, as it now also takes into account matches played in UEFA EURO and World Cup final tournaments, and not only games in the qualifying competitions.”
Posted from Portugal
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Good win for Portugal, and bad as England’s record is against them, I agree that the World Cup wouldn’t be the same without them. I actually bet on Bosnia last night, but only because I thought they looked sharp in the first leg, never mind! I stumbled across this comparison in the betting market though http://tiny.cc/SJESQ . It shows how much people betting in France and Holland were ripped off when on the odds they were offered by the monopoly bookmakers in those countries. It’s completely unfair, I’m glad Right2bet are campaigning for an open gambling market, so support the petition if you agree!