WC2010 Qualifier Recap: Portugal 2 – 3 Denmark

Everything about this match was down. Letdown. Meltdown. Move down in the table. Jensen’s game-winner from downtown. Okay, I’m done. Overwhelmingly underwhelming Portugal started like-a-dees:

Nani – Hugo Almeida – Simão
Deco – Raul Meireles – Maniche
Paulo Ferreira – Ricardo Carvalho – Pepe – Bosingwa
Quim

First Half Analysis / Notes
We came out looking pretty disjointed in the midfield, with passes going astray and no real idea about how we were going to attack the Danes. After about twenty five minutes, we settled down and began to play collected, possession based football. The Denmark attack was mostly nonexistent allowing Bosingwa to basically play as a support winger rather than have to track back much and defend. The occasional chance was rooted out and Maniche inexplicably headed the ball back across the goal mouth in Hugo’s direction rather than try for a somewhat open net from about five yards out. I don’t know if his body was simply not turned for banging the ball into the back of the net, but he never looked like nodding the ball home.

We finally broke through in the 41st minute when Hugo Almeida got the ball in an admittedly offside position (although, if referees can get it wrong and call a guy offside, thus taking away a goal, I suppose the other extreme has to happen at some point) and played a great cross to Nani on the ground who tucked it under Denmark’s number one Andersen to open the scoring, which is how they went into half.

Intermission changes / Thoughts
Maniche, Almeida, and Raul Meireles can all stay home for what it’s worth. Maniche played blah, Raul Meireles is everything that was wrong with the team in years past (wild shots from far out, little discipline), and Postiga is better than Almeida, hands down. I’d love to be able to convert one of these fucking corners into something resembling a goal. We continue to lack that killer instinct of being able to put teams away. 1-0 is hardly a score to be confident in going to the dressing rooms. I predicted in my preview that Denmark would score so I still had that in the back of my mind. I certainly didn’t have the shit storm that was about to take place anywhere near my dome.

Second Half Analysis / Notes
We opened dominating possession. Our chances were plenty and were plenty wasted. At one point, we had the ball twice as much as Denmark did (66% – 33%) so even Ricardo Carvalho was getting into the attack. After numerous runs forward that yielded bunk, Queiroz decided to give recent 30 million Euro man Danny a run out and have Simmy Sabrosa take a breather. “Oh No, Not” Nuno Gomes came on as well to replace Hugo Almeida, which should have been a harbinger of things to come, but overwhelming anticipation and optimism caused me to basically ignore this move.

Danny had an immediate impact and could have made it 2-0 on a clear chance to go for goal. However, he bent the ball well wide of the net, thus having Portugal hit the half-century mark as far as missed opportunities go for this match. Nuno Gomes then decided that he’d follow his fellow sub’s lead by putting a wide open chance from six inches out over the net. Way to remind me how much I hate you, Nuno. Gomes’ shitty miss was tantamount to the seventh seal being busted open and all hell prepared to break loose. In the 83rd minute, Denmark’s Nicklas Bendtner made Portugal pay for squandering forty five million chances by converting a well-struck, lower right corner ball past a diving, well off his line, Quim. However, we didn’t have long to lament the late tying goal as Nuno made himself useful and got run over in the box for Deco to bang a penalty home and turn Portuguese lamentation back into jubilation. Moutinho supplanted Nani to give a somewhat more defensive shape to the team and ensure that the lead would not be gifted back to the Danes.

That didn’t work. A late corner kick for Denmark means trouble as Quim gets caught out looking like Ricardo and just as quickly as we stole the lead back from the Danes, they re-knotted the score at 2-2 on a Poulsen header. No more than sixty seconds later, Jensen tried his luck from about twenty seven yards out, hit Pepe on the way through and scorched it past Quim to cause Denmark pure joy as they went ahead 2 – 3 with precious seconds remaining. Portugal were never able to do anything with the final ticks and end up with a 2 -3 home loss, and as extra icing on the shitcake, fourth place in the current group standings.

Individual Player Rankings:
Goalkeeper:
Ricardo Quim: 3 – Set pieces will continue to kill us, and the third goal was sort of bad luck, but he was out of position plenty and I almost had to check his shirt a couple times to make sure it didn’t say “Ricardo” on it. He hasn’t been tested much until now and he failed his first test.

Defenders / Wingbacks / Attacking Centerbacks:
Paulo Ferreira: 5 – Cleared well and played effective defense filling in for his partners’ runs forward. He certainly wasn’t among the reasons why they lost.

Ricardo Carvalho: 5 – Needs to find some way to figure out how to boss this back line on set pieces. Since they all speak Portuguese, it’s obviously not a language issue, so… What is it? There’s way too many class defenders on this team to have so many frequent breakdowns in set situations. Fix it, Ricky!

Pepe: 5.5 – I wish the Portugal-born players played with as much fire for their country as he does for his adopted one. The game winner was unlucky, but it happened, so I gotta take-a-da points off.

Jose Bosingwa: 6 - He’s an excellent player going forward and somewhat clumsy in coming back to defend. He tackles very hard and sloppily at times which makes me think that if he were on a caution that he’d become far less effective. The first goal was scored due to poor defending by him.

Midfielders
Deco: 8 – Sad that the two players most on form right now for the team (Deco and Nani) weren’t even born in the country (Brazil and Cape Verde, respectively).

Maniche: 1 – Used up whatever sentimental feelings he had through an awful performance. Back to International Purgatory for you.

Raul Meireles: 2.5 – Wildly overrated. Moutinho, Miguel Veloso, and Pele are all WAAAY better than him.

“Attack”
Nani: 7.5 – This isn’t Manchester United and Old Trafford, so stop thinking you’re going to get every foul and half foul that you want. Still, for me, I think we’ll see him on the wing opposite Ronaldo when Crissy returns. He played VERY well for the most part over these past two matches.

Hugo Almeida: 4 – Stop taking shots from way outside. Who do you think you are, Petit? The pass to Nani was nice to set up the first goal but other than that I want Postiga or even Yannick here instead of him. Without his size, what value does he have really?

Simão: 4.5 – Meh.

Substitutes:
Danny – 1 – He played a whole lot better than a ‘1′. But that horrible miss now looms even larger, especially since they could have used a goal or two towards the end there.

Nuno Gomes – 0.5 – I can get fouled and earn a penalty, too. Other than that, nice miss on the clear chance from almost inside the goal. Can someone please find out who he has a sex tape of in the Portuguese Federation so we can fire that person and end No Goals’ blackmailing scheme to keep him on the squad?

Joe-Wow Moutinho – Incomplete – Denmark did score the game tying and winner while he was on the pitch but neither were his direct fault. Other than that, he didn’t have enough time out there for me to make a call on his performance.

Conclusion:
It’s still early. But this team has A WAYS to go.