Portugal – Malta : Match preview

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!!!!