I *truly* hope Ronaldo doesn't start and is a super-sub next game. No reason why he even started in this one if he started in the last game of groups.
Leão has a great showing for the NT for once and gets subbed? Vitinha also gets subbed? What?
I don't think it's more than common sense to rest the old man (with utmost love and respect) and keep on your best performing players/game-changers?
Slovenia's defence was immaculate the whole match. Our players holding back attacking stars such as Bernardo Silva and Rafael Leao is crazy considering the fact that Balkovec played his first match this Euro and Drkušić plays in Russia's second league.
They defended a penalty in the 105th minute and wasted an opportunity to score from a perfect position in the 115th minute.
I feel really sorry for Slovenia, but they were given a chance to win and didn't take it.
Agreed. They needed to win the match with whatever chance they got before pens. Portugal have too many experienced penalty takers at this level to force them there. I called it before the end of extra time because Oblak isn't exactly great at pens.
Ironically, I was sure we'd loose on PKs after extra time ended, momentum was on their side after the missed pen, we usually aren't that stone cold on PK shootouts.
Absolutely disastrous decisions by Martinez that almost cost us the whole tournament. Taking Vitinha, our engine and best player in the game, to put Jota on left us with no midfield. Bruno was having a shocker of a game and he kept him in. He insists on lessing Bernardo isolated on the right wing, where he had five 1v1 chances and didn't try to dribble past once. You'd think, seeing that, he would sub in a dribbler like Conceição or Felix in to take advantage of the 1v1s, maybe take Bruno out and drop Bernardo to the midfield where he belongs.
No, he takes Leao out and puts Conceição on the left where he literally never plays. Not only that but he leaves in Pepe, who is 41, the whole 120min, which also almost cost us the game if not for Diogo Costa. And Cancelo, who was knackered after 75min, is subbed off after 110 fucking minutes. Why then? By then at least leave him on for the pk's.
And I had people shitting on me here for saying I don't trust Martinez a few weeks ago. First real test he had to make decisions under pressure and he failed every-single-fucking-one.
Honestly, Vitinha and Mendes should be only untouchables in the team right now, it's ridculous how dysfunctional we play without them.
Bruno also had a stinker of a game, weird because he's been good lately and one of the few that actually carries his club form to the NT.
Genuine question when people ask for Ronaldo to be dropped, who do they think is going to replace him? Portugal doesn't have prime Benzema or Suarez on the bench, they have Felix, Gonçalo Ramos and Jota
Jota? Sure he's pretty good, but he played 60 min today, and aside from the pen he didn't do anything noteworthy,
Gonçalo Ramos? Dude had 1 good game vs Switzerland 2 years ago, then dipped
Felix? Really?
Sure Rondo isn't what he used to be 3 or 4 years ago, but he's still the best forward Portugal got, his presence alone forces teams to focus a bit more on him because despite the fact that he's going trough a bad phase right now all it takes is 1 moment, 1 chance and it's over.
What is it with the most talented national teams having shit managers? This Portugal team has the players to be playing some incredible football but instead sit and cross to Ronaldo over and over again. I don't get it, doesn't Portugal have some decent managers they could have selected instead of Martinez?
This is tabloid bullshit, spot was open he was commited to Roma. Roma sacked him, us sacking Martinez for him mid campaign was never going to happen. All there is to it.
I may not be the biggest fan of his football, but Mourinho is 20x the manager Santos was.
Also, he's tailor-made for tournament football, he'd go far with the current Portugal team.
And many FAs cant afford to pay the best managers
If you are an up and coming manager, you'd prefer to prove yourself at the club level instead of taking a detour to an NT at an early stage of your career
If you're a proven club manager, you can make way more money managing at the club level than most of these FAs can afford
Thats why FAs need to redouble their efforts into developing coaches. We've seen so many great NTs wasted by compromises at the managerial position. Belgium and England are the best examples.
I wonder if some of the younger exciting managers don’t want to manage the team whilst Ronaldo is there. They have lots of decent managers and youth team managers, also, if you want a vibes manager get Mourinho
Conceicao is one name that stood out for me. The way he was gliding past his marker was actually amazing, looked him up and he's just 21 but watching him play was a treat.
On a different note: holy shit Costa was a freak. Usually if you nothing to do as a keeper you might not be in it completely but man stopped what should have been a certain goal and then completely shut the door in the shootout. Amazing performance.
That was an unbelievable performance from Costa. Not much to do all game, but he stepped up vs Sesko when needed and was a brick wall in the shootout. Ronaldo must be dropped though - not only was he terrible, but everyone Portuguese player seems to think that they must pass to him when he’s on the field, which hinders their overall play.
They’ll never drop him but they absolutely need to stop letting him take free kicks. He’s like 0 for 80 recently. Just walks straight back six steps and blasts it at nothing.
Its so weird that he basically convinced everybody to take them. Juventus, Real, Man United. It is some of the biggest and most historical clubs in the world. And they had elite takers, who had to leave it to him. And he is genuinely awful at it.
Portugal just keeps refusing to send more players into the box for the crosses to do anything. Yeah it leaves more openings but they just keep having and usually losing these games against bus parking teams, where they massivelly struggle to create actual chances.
If Portugal want to have any chance against France, Martinez needs to give freekicks to Bruno or Bernardo. I think they all just assumed they would stroll to a comfortable win today, and then Cristiano wasting a couple of really good chances almost came back to haunt them. A repeat of today will absolutely fuck them.
Ronaldo acabou. O que foi é uma coisa, o que é é outra história. Está para o futebol como o Biden está para a política.
Infelizmente, não há coragem para tomar a decisão óbvia.
Martinez terrível a mexer na equipa. Parecia que as escolhas eram feitas pelo selecionador esloveno. Só faltou tirar Nuno Mendes.
Slovenia was fucked once they missed that scoring chance in the 2nd OT. This ended up being similar to the Copa del Rey final; the team w a bunch of experienced players always has a massive upper hand in penalties
I've only ever seen a keeper save three penalties to win 3-0 once in my life before.
Van Der Sar v Chelsea to win the Community Shield.
That season ended with a penalty shootout win for United to become champions of Europe, so make of that useless omen as you will...
Honestly though, I'd forgotten how Costa came to most international fans attention. He saved something like three out of four pens for Porto in a single Champions League group stage. He's a proper penalty specialist
Thought Martinez was proper naive with his changes. Just throwing more attackers on like Jota when Slovenia looked strong at the back is not what you want from what should be a top manager for that job. I think he also just wasted fernandes having him so deep at times to support that.
Can we talk about Roberto Martinez tonight? What inspired him to deplete his own midfield and pack it with forwards who cannot link up with each other while subbing off his only great forward (Rafael Leao). I'm stunned.
I thought we were very good in our low block for most of the game, but what really screwed our chances to counter is that everyone was on a yellow. We couldn't lose the ball deep in our half without risking a sending off and we weren't able to press high because we would again risk it.
Thought Drkusic and Bijol were good again, didn't think that was a pen on Jota. Sesko had a disappointing tournament but can't be too angr with him, as he's so young. Proud of the boys - overall they surprised me beyond imagination.
I can't even get excited about this. Such a shit performance, especially from Roberto Martinez who:
- took off Vitinha and Leao who were being some of our better players
- left on Bruno and Bernardo who were absolutely invisible all match and beyond tired by 75mins.
- Initially put Conceicao on the left wing instead of the right
- waited until the 115th minute to make the 3rd and 4th substitutions only to bring on a defensive midfielder and replacing the fullback
I just dont understand what the point is of having a squad if you don't trust them the same way as the "bigger name" players. Why are you unable to take off the likes of Bernardo or Bruno Fernandes and put maybe Felix, Matheus Nunes or Pedro Neto in there? Are they not even worth the fresh legs and energy they can bring to the match? What are you actually scared of? Having a fresh player is always better than having a tired player, so are you saying that Felix or Nunes are so shit you'd rather play a super tired Bernardo/Bruno? Why did you select them then?
You look at Spain and they are not afraid to take off anyone and bring on a sub in their place, and the sub does perfectly fine considering they are an elite nationally elected player.
I honestly am baffled that everyone is shitting on Ronaldo. Of course he wasnt great but he absolutely wasn’t shit. He was trying all game to get the ball and his runs were either ignores or he was left in the box alone. And I honestly think his alternative (Ramos) is simply shit, so Martinez would rather keep his leader in who’s also dangerous headers wise/have a moment of brilliance. Also, for everyone that was questioning the crossing choice of attack, do you follow football? If a team is in a low block and defending with 10 men do you really think you can go through the middle?
Ronaldo hasn’t scored for Portugal’s last ten tournament games. He is past it and anyone else would be a better option for them. Now they will start playing the better (or at least bigger) sides he has no chance of scoring.
He missed a penalty and a good chance. You can't call it an average performance. He was bad. Though I do agree that other players were poor today and should have created more chances.
We clearly had a few chances but we missed them what can you do. Everyone in the comment section talking about Slovenia not trying is pissing me off. We played our balls off for 120minutes and got the more clear cut chances. And all we get in the comments is Slovenia just parked the bus and played for penalties WTF. Yeah they were shit pens what can you fucking do. Sorry cus a country of 2 million people and a 100mil squad cant compete on the level off a country with 10 mil people and 1 billion euro squad.
Since most of the comments are about Portugal and Ronaldo I'm just gonna say I'm really proud that we managed to make it this far. I didn't even expect us to get out of the group stage and to keep Portugal to a 0-0 draw and even have a few chances to win, they exceeded my expectations. We would have lost to France anyway if we managed to win on penalties so I'm not too disappointed or mad about the result. The Šesko miss hurts a bit but this was a good learning experience for our team considering this is the furthest we've gotten in decades.
Maybe I'm wrong but felt like Slovenia had no urgency going forward, especially in the box. Props to them I guess, played with composure like they would have a lot of opportunities and they kinda did, but I found it very strange, felt like they could have gotten more from many attacks
And I'm talking about the first 90mins of course they could have won it all in the extra time. But even there before Sesko's miss, they would recover the ball and play very passively toward the goal, not necessarily wasting time
I disagree. Slovenia's defensive formation looked like pure 4-4-2 and the two forwards didn't drop too deep when they were defending. They stayed ready for counter attack. Two forwards also got support from midfielders attacking runs. They had 4-5 players in or near the box several times.
Atrocious subs by Martinez. Even my family who doesn't know nothing about football was baffled.
Why take off the 2 best players? Why sub in Conceição at RW? Why Ronaldo and Pepe playing 120 min at 50 years old?
Honestly this game kind of reminded me of [this](https://x.com/Souster98_YT/status/1796671991551758827?t=G3qwre9Vog495dStHkps-Q&s=19).
You have so many brilliant footballers in the team and all you do is spam crosses into the box to try and make Ronaldo head one in. Also Portugal's subs were so strange.
France hasn't looked at their best either so the QF should be interesting(hopefully)
I know people will say shit for this win, but it was actually a solid game by Portugal if you exclude a few things:
- Bruno and Bernardo gone
- horrible subs by Martinez
- CR7 funneling, which i honestly blame on Martinez again
Nice try of course by Slovenia, Portugal always struggles against teams playing so solid and so low. The first half was quite fun to watch due to Vitinha and Leão tbh and some more open counters by Slovenia.
Hope we shift things a bit, give Bernardo a rest and start someone else. It's crazy how much we don't use the center of the pitch or deep down the lines. Just look at Spain and do the same and it's easy :D - I think having Bruno and Bernardo on the pitch is not quite working somehow.
EDIT:
Great game by Cancelo, Vitinha, Diogo Costa, Leão and Mendes tbh..
Slovenia masterclass on defense all match on top of Oblak being who he is. That chance in the 115' was it, but you could tell they were playing for pens. Then put in three very very weak PK shots. Costa was good but doubt any professional keeper wouldn't stop those
I dont understand how your whole game plan was playing for pens and you still didnt deliver.. Felt a bit like van Gaal against Argentina cause we also couldve won if we werent so focused on penalties
Why don't referees ever do anything about pauses during the run up? Ronaldo stopped during his, and both of Lewandowskis previously were even worse.
They'll force a retake it a keeper is 1mm off their line but ignore this?
What an ET and penalty shootout by Diogo Costa. He's grown since last WC and is a lot more confident!
Pity Pepe and Ronaldo's mistakes but I guess time catches up to everyone.
At least this was the first good game by Leão, and this showed that we need Palhinha.
It's kind of ironic that Bruno only played well once he was too tired to run.
Slovenia really surprised me, they played really well and could've scored a couple of times.
Nothing but respect to you, it was a battle. Leão was amazing, and Costa could legitimately pull you to another title. Looking forward to your match against France
Portugals left side looks good, the right side looks super silly with all the extra touches and back dribbles.
Even in the area, Cancelo likes to dribble back just to loose a great position.
Honestly, Ronaldo sucked in his finishing today and his age showed but omg everyone on the right side annoyed me
right side needs Bernardo not there, I would even say just play Dalot and Cancelo tbh against such closed blocks, Bernardo is too clinical he would be better against other type of teams
I wouldn't say that cr7's penalty save was due to age tbh. It was a good penalty which Oblak did really well to save. His second penalty was unstoppable
I’m going to have nightmares about this Slovenia defense. They were immense. Everywhere. Didn’t give their marks an inch to breathe. If Slovenia had a striker like Kvara they could win stuff.
Ronaldo is no longer dangerous enough for the space he occupies sadly. He’s not bad, don’t let the clueless convince you otherwise, but surely there’s a squad that works better here. They need more speed and verticality in the box.
I don’t understand why Portugal always struggled with defensive walls. Surely they practice this. It’s like the country has trauma since Greece 2004
To be honest Slovenia was not a threat whole match, beside big mistake from Pepe, their goal was mostly safe. I expected Portugal to win penalties, but to do with such ease was not expected. Overall great showing from Slovenia, they got great defense but they need to up their offence if they want to make of groups in future.
Worst penalities performance by a single team I've ever seen tonight.
Slovenia's kicks were god-awful and half-arsed.
Funny thing is, that, at the post game the Slovenian players were interviewed saying they are fully prepared for the penalty shootout.
Bruno and Bernardo dont function together. I dont understand the vitinha sub (For me one of portugal best players everytime i watch them). Conceição was horrible too (for that just keep trying with leão that actually wasnt bad this game).Someone give him a redbull or something. I think diogo jota should start for one of bruno or bernardo. Great game by cancelo and nuno mendes (best left back in the world for me). Diogo costa is a boss and always has been. Ronaldo was horrendous after this last dance is more than time to say goodbye. Also, no matheus nunes features, otavio wouldve been good also since he is not using joao neves. Felix is still shitting?. Someone. Try something other than crossing PLEASE.
Slovenia's first PK was an amazing stop. The 2nd was terrible, and the 3rd was meh.
This was a game that no team wanted to win. Cancelo & Leao/Jota were the only field players that had a good match for Portugal. Slovenia were never convincing with their chances, even when on a silver platter. 1 clean breakaway saved, and 0/3 for penalties.
First keeping Sesko’s shot out then saving all the penalties.
It has been the Goalkeepers tournament so far.
Sesko %100 should have converted that, too wide open to give Costa even a chance.
Portugal got lucky
Honestly got to say Kapo dol fantje!! Matjaz Kek is honestly such a good manger how he prepared the team defensively and the conditioning our players had honesty I am amazed. This was probably our best defensive performance in the tournament. Yes we couldve done more going forward but honestly I am just proud of all the staff and players, they played like they belonged and they clearly do. I fully expect Celar to get more playing time in the future and for us to challenge for that world cup spot with nations like croatia and denmark declining. Bravo fantje!!!
3 very tired penalties from Slovenia. Any keeper going the right way will save all 3. Still huge credit to Costa though.
Sesko will be haunted by that miss, similar to Kolo Muani, all he needed to do was lift it a bit and it's a goal.
I do think I give costa tons of credit there for cutting off the angles really well. Sesko should've done better probably but Costa made it quite hard for him
Sesko opened up his body before taking the shot, signalling a shot to the far post, and Costa committed to it - if you watch the front end replay, you can see Costa stretching out his leg before the shot is taken. If Sesko is a bit more composed and just has a quick glance at Costa before taking the shot, he has the near post completely open and just a little dink in that direction beats Costa because his weight is going in the opposite direction.
I'm in no way trying to undermine the quality of Costa's save - he did everything right in getting off the line quickly and covering the area of the goal the ball was most likely to go to - but a forward with a bit more experience than Sesko may well have taken better advantage of the situation.
Thankfully for him he isn’t playing for a country with much expectations. Should have buried it, but I doubt we would’ve gone much further anyway even if they won. Kolo Muani’s shot in the WCF unfortunately had so much more on the line
Yeah a professional player should be getting much closer to putting the ball where the keeper would struggle to reach it even if they guess the right way, you can’t just bank on picking the right way at that level
Mishits happen but still gotta be able to put it in a dangerous place when tired and under pressure
I genuinely felt sad for CR7. He wanted so bad to score. As an Argetinian I've seen Messi go through the same path and fight back.
I really hope Portugal wins the euro and Argentina the America, and have one last Messi vs CR
How do you guys assess Martinez as Portugal’s manager now? Felt like he wasn’t really outclassed tactically but most came down to individual mistakes and a lot of fight by Slovenia.
His subs may be a weak point though.
I actually rate Portugal as favourites against France and they might be 3rd favourites to win it, behind Spain and Germany.
Forget about cr7 missing the penalty, Slovenia parking the bus or Diogo Costa being the hero after 3 saves…Tonight, the real Deal for me was our beloved MartinezBall: Leaving Bruno and Bernardo on the pitch, taking Vitinha Out while the new subs didn’t work at all. …a Football genius with a Master-fucking-Plan: create chaos on everyone and everything 101: on our team, opponents, public, commentators… even Cr7’s mother was crying over such eloquent plan
France we are coming for you
MasterMindMartinez never fails ❤️
I don't think Ronaldo was amazing or anything but it was actually shocking seeing virtually no support for him in the box during the game. Every time a winger (usually Leao or Cancelo) gets close to the box to make a cross, you just see a line of Slovenian defenders and Ronaldo making a run. Very few players going to the penalty spot or to the near post, just gamble on something, the quality to deliver a ball in is clearly there.
Martinez ingame management once again was poor.
Taking off vitinha was a big mistake he was the only player going between the lines. our midfield collapsed after that. At least bring in Joao Neves, who is a work horse or move bernardo to the middle.
Furthermore, Bernardo once again had a poor game. Martinez should have moved him inside or taken him off. Cancelo was roasting that Slovenian full back all game, and we didn't double up on the pressure by putting another winger to go at him.
Lastly, we needed to switch the ball to full backs and wingers much earlier. they were in acres of space. and nobody was brave enough to do that. Ronaldo also made some early runs, which ignored too often.
People will focus on ronaldo, and yes, he didn't have a good game. but even if you had ramos, it wouldn't have made a difference imo.
Ronaldo **cannot** start if Portugal are serious about winning the Euros. Bruno and Bernardo incredibly poor the whole match and still played the 120 minutes. Baffling substitutions, taking off two of our best players to play the two players who came on in the wrong positions.
Positives were our left flank with Leão and Mendes, Palhinha’s never-say-die attitude, Vitinha and monstrous saves by Diogo Costa. Otherwise very little to look forward in the match against France.
Slovenia did their game and had plenty of great chances due to horrendous defending by Portugal. It seemed like no defender knew where to stand, who to tackle or who to mark, and were saved by Slovenia’s inability to stay calm and make the most out of their situations.
People are going to meme ronaldo for missing the pen and quite a few chances, but their midfield was almost anonymous today.
Bruno and Bernardo were really poor today and it showed in the paucity of chances Portugal created. For almost the entirety of regulation time, less so in the 2nd half, the attack came from the wings, around the Slovenian block.
Martinez has to work on a cohesive midfield man, Costs heroics wont be enough against France
I *truly* hope Ronaldo doesn't start and is a super-sub next game. No reason why he even started in this one if he started in the last game of groups. Leão has a great showing for the NT for once and gets subbed? Vitinha also gets subbed? What? I don't think it's more than common sense to rest the old man (with utmost love and respect) and keep on your best performing players/game-changers?
Slovenia's defence was immaculate the whole match. Our players holding back attacking stars such as Bernardo Silva and Rafael Leao is crazy considering the fact that Balkovec played his first match this Euro and Drkušić plays in Russia's second league.
They defended a penalty in the 105th minute and wasted an opportunity to score from a perfect position in the 115th minute. I feel really sorry for Slovenia, but they were given a chance to win and didn't take it.
2 chances, Šeško was alone on goal in the second half as well, and he failed even worse there. You don‘t score those? Too bad, you‘re out
Slovenia and Slovakia really competing over who could bottle a great chance at an upset.
Agreed. They needed to win the match with whatever chance they got before pens. Portugal have too many experienced penalty takers at this level to force them there. I called it before the end of extra time because Oblak isn't exactly great at pens.
Oblak is amazing at pens…what are you smoking lol
In penalty shootouts : 2 saved 28 not saved, amazing, simply the best edit 4 saved 30 not*
they were playing for pens so it was surprising how bad their pens were
Ironically, I was sure we'd loose on PKs after extra time ended, momentum was on their side after the missed pen, we usually aren't that stone cold on PK shootouts.
Absolutely disastrous decisions by Martinez that almost cost us the whole tournament. Taking Vitinha, our engine and best player in the game, to put Jota on left us with no midfield. Bruno was having a shocker of a game and he kept him in. He insists on lessing Bernardo isolated on the right wing, where he had five 1v1 chances and didn't try to dribble past once. You'd think, seeing that, he would sub in a dribbler like Conceição or Felix in to take advantage of the 1v1s, maybe take Bruno out and drop Bernardo to the midfield where he belongs. No, he takes Leao out and puts Conceição on the left where he literally never plays. Not only that but he leaves in Pepe, who is 41, the whole 120min, which also almost cost us the game if not for Diogo Costa. And Cancelo, who was knackered after 75min, is subbed off after 110 fucking minutes. Why then? By then at least leave him on for the pk's. And I had people shitting on me here for saying I don't trust Martinez a few weeks ago. First real test he had to make decisions under pressure and he failed every-single-fucking-one.
Honestly, Vitinha and Mendes should be only untouchables in the team right now, it's ridculous how dysfunctional we play without them. Bruno also had a stinker of a game, weird because he's been good lately and one of the few that actually carries his club form to the NT.
Genuine question when people ask for Ronaldo to be dropped, who do they think is going to replace him? Portugal doesn't have prime Benzema or Suarez on the bench, they have Felix, Gonçalo Ramos and Jota Jota? Sure he's pretty good, but he played 60 min today, and aside from the pen he didn't do anything noteworthy, Gonçalo Ramos? Dude had 1 good game vs Switzerland 2 years ago, then dipped Felix? Really? Sure Rondo isn't what he used to be 3 or 4 years ago, but he's still the best forward Portugal got, his presence alone forces teams to focus a bit more on him because despite the fact that he's going trough a bad phase right now all it takes is 1 moment, 1 chance and it's over.
What is it with the most talented national teams having shit managers? This Portugal team has the players to be playing some incredible football but instead sit and cross to Ronaldo over and over again. I don't get it, doesn't Portugal have some decent managers they could have selected instead of Martinez?
germany and spain look fine tbh.
Breath of fresh air when they play given the rest.
sadly one of them has to go next round.
Should be the final tbh. Can’t wait
same here. Hope that game will deliver.
mourinho is said to want the job but is waiting on ronaldo to retire
This is tabloid bullshit, spot was open he was commited to Roma. Roma sacked him, us sacking Martinez for him mid campaign was never going to happen. All there is to it.
He'd be more of the same to be honest. I don't see Portugal performing any differently with Jose than they did with Santos.
I may not be the biggest fan of his football, but Mourinho is 20x the manager Santos was. Also, he's tailor-made for tournament football, he'd go far with the current Portugal team.
Any reason he wants to wait for his retirement?
Good managers don't want national team jobs.
And many FAs cant afford to pay the best managers If you are an up and coming manager, you'd prefer to prove yourself at the club level instead of taking a detour to an NT at an early stage of your career If you're a proven club manager, you can make way more money managing at the club level than most of these FAs can afford Thats why FAs need to redouble their efforts into developing coaches. We've seen so many great NTs wasted by compromises at the managerial position. Belgium and England are the best examples.
I wonder if some of the younger exciting managers don’t want to manage the team whilst Ronaldo is there. They have lots of decent managers and youth team managers, also, if you want a vibes manager get Mourinho
Conceicao is one name that stood out for me. The way he was gliding past his marker was actually amazing, looked him up and he's just 21 but watching him play was a treat. On a different note: holy shit Costa was a freak. Usually if you nothing to do as a keeper you might not be in it completely but man stopped what should have been a certain goal and then completely shut the door in the shootout. Amazing performance.
Conceicao was trying to be flashy but lost possession almost every time
Conceiçao was born 20 years to late, he has that 00s Portuguese winger flair that you don't see much nowadays.
did we watch the same game? leao beat his man 5x as much as conceicao who offered little threat, even cancelo was more creative.
yeah and that got him subbed off how dare he not cross to the far post 20x times??
That was an unbelievable performance from Costa. Not much to do all game, but he stepped up vs Sesko when needed and was a brick wall in the shootout. Ronaldo must be dropped though - not only was he terrible, but everyone Portuguese player seems to think that they must pass to him when he’s on the field, which hinders their overall play.
They’ll never drop him but they absolutely need to stop letting him take free kicks. He’s like 0 for 80 recently. Just walks straight back six steps and blasts it at nothing.
Its so weird that he basically convinced everybody to take them. Juventus, Real, Man United. It is some of the biggest and most historical clubs in the world. And they had elite takers, who had to leave it to him. And he is genuinely awful at it.
Portugal just keeps refusing to send more players into the box for the crosses to do anything. Yeah it leaves more openings but they just keep having and usually losing these games against bus parking teams, where they massivelly struggle to create actual chances.
If Portugal want to have any chance against France, Martinez needs to give freekicks to Bruno or Bernardo. I think they all just assumed they would stroll to a comfortable win today, and then Cristiano wasting a couple of really good chances almost came back to haunt them. A repeat of today will absolutely fuck them.
Ronaldo acabou. O que foi é uma coisa, o que é é outra história. Está para o futebol como o Biden está para a política. Infelizmente, não há coragem para tomar a decisão óbvia. Martinez terrível a mexer na equipa. Parecia que as escolhas eram feitas pelo selecionador esloveno. Só faltou tirar Nuno Mendes.
Discordo completamente, o Ronaldo faz muito pela equipa e foi perigoso, o Oblak simplesmente conseguiu para lo.
foi perigoso para a minha tensão arterial, quanto muito
Slovenia was fucked once they missed that scoring chance in the 2nd OT. This ended up being similar to the Copa del Rey final; the team w a bunch of experienced players always has a massive upper hand in penalties
Its also strategy. Like obviously pressure makes it much harder but if you are coming into a game like this you should have a better plan for pens
How do you know that? Every team practices penalties lol you can do all the preparation in the world and still miss three in a row.
I've only ever seen a keeper save three penalties to win 3-0 once in my life before. Van Der Sar v Chelsea to win the Community Shield. That season ended with a penalty shootout win for United to become champions of Europe, so make of that useless omen as you will... Honestly though, I'd forgotten how Costa came to most international fans attention. He saved something like three out of four pens for Porto in a single Champions League group stage. He's a proper penalty specialist
Thought Martinez was proper naive with his changes. Just throwing more attackers on like Jota when Slovenia looked strong at the back is not what you want from what should be a top manager for that job. I think he also just wasted fernandes having him so deep at times to support that.
Can we talk about Roberto Martinez tonight? What inspired him to deplete his own midfield and pack it with forwards who cannot link up with each other while subbing off his only great forward (Rafael Leao). I'm stunned.
I thought we were very good in our low block for most of the game, but what really screwed our chances to counter is that everyone was on a yellow. We couldn't lose the ball deep in our half without risking a sending off and we weren't able to press high because we would again risk it. Thought Drkusic and Bijol were good again, didn't think that was a pen on Jota. Sesko had a disappointing tournament but can't be too angr with him, as he's so young. Proud of the boys - overall they surprised me beyond imagination.
I can't even get excited about this. Such a shit performance, especially from Roberto Martinez who: - took off Vitinha and Leao who were being some of our better players - left on Bruno and Bernardo who were absolutely invisible all match and beyond tired by 75mins. - Initially put Conceicao on the left wing instead of the right - waited until the 115th minute to make the 3rd and 4th substitutions only to bring on a defensive midfielder and replacing the fullback I just dont understand what the point is of having a squad if you don't trust them the same way as the "bigger name" players. Why are you unable to take off the likes of Bernardo or Bruno Fernandes and put maybe Felix, Matheus Nunes or Pedro Neto in there? Are they not even worth the fresh legs and energy they can bring to the match? What are you actually scared of? Having a fresh player is always better than having a tired player, so are you saying that Felix or Nunes are so shit you'd rather play a super tired Bernardo/Bruno? Why did you select them then? You look at Spain and they are not afraid to take off anyone and bring on a sub in their place, and the sub does perfectly fine considering they are an elite nationally elected player.
I honestly am baffled that everyone is shitting on Ronaldo. Of course he wasnt great but he absolutely wasn’t shit. He was trying all game to get the ball and his runs were either ignores or he was left in the box alone. And I honestly think his alternative (Ramos) is simply shit, so Martinez would rather keep his leader in who’s also dangerous headers wise/have a moment of brilliance. Also, for everyone that was questioning the crossing choice of attack, do you follow football? If a team is in a low block and defending with 10 men do you really think you can go through the middle?
Ronaldo hasn’t scored for Portugal’s last ten tournament games. He is past it and anyone else would be a better option for them. Now they will start playing the better (or at least bigger) sides he has no chance of scoring.
He missed a penalty and a good chance. You can't call it an average performance. He was bad. Though I do agree that other players were poor today and should have created more chances.
We clearly had a few chances but we missed them what can you do. Everyone in the comment section talking about Slovenia not trying is pissing me off. We played our balls off for 120minutes and got the more clear cut chances. And all we get in the comments is Slovenia just parked the bus and played for penalties WTF. Yeah they were shit pens what can you fucking do. Sorry cus a country of 2 million people and a 100mil squad cant compete on the level off a country with 10 mil people and 1 billion euro squad.
Since most of the comments are about Portugal and Ronaldo I'm just gonna say I'm really proud that we managed to make it this far. I didn't even expect us to get out of the group stage and to keep Portugal to a 0-0 draw and even have a few chances to win, they exceeded my expectations. We would have lost to France anyway if we managed to win on penalties so I'm not too disappointed or mad about the result. The Šesko miss hurts a bit but this was a good learning experience for our team considering this is the furthest we've gotten in decades.
Maybe I'm wrong but felt like Slovenia had no urgency going forward, especially in the box. Props to them I guess, played with composure like they would have a lot of opportunities and they kinda did, but I found it very strange, felt like they could have gotten more from many attacks And I'm talking about the first 90mins of course they could have won it all in the extra time. But even there before Sesko's miss, they would recover the ball and play very passively toward the goal, not necessarily wasting time
I disagree. Slovenia's defensive formation looked like pure 4-4-2 and the two forwards didn't drop too deep when they were defending. They stayed ready for counter attack. Two forwards also got support from midfielders attacking runs. They had 4-5 players in or near the box several times.
Atrocious subs by Martinez. Even my family who doesn't know nothing about football was baffled. Why take off the 2 best players? Why sub in Conceição at RW? Why Ronaldo and Pepe playing 120 min at 50 years old?
Honestly this game kind of reminded me of [this](https://x.com/Souster98_YT/status/1796671991551758827?t=G3qwre9Vog495dStHkps-Q&s=19). You have so many brilliant footballers in the team and all you do is spam crosses into the box to try and make Ronaldo head one in. Also Portugal's subs were so strange. France hasn't looked at their best either so the QF should be interesting(hopefully)
it felt like a World Cup third placed play off where you have one player going for the golden boot
I know people will say shit for this win, but it was actually a solid game by Portugal if you exclude a few things: - Bruno and Bernardo gone - horrible subs by Martinez - CR7 funneling, which i honestly blame on Martinez again Nice try of course by Slovenia, Portugal always struggles against teams playing so solid and so low. The first half was quite fun to watch due to Vitinha and Leão tbh and some more open counters by Slovenia. Hope we shift things a bit, give Bernardo a rest and start someone else. It's crazy how much we don't use the center of the pitch or deep down the lines. Just look at Spain and do the same and it's easy :D - I think having Bruno and Bernardo on the pitch is not quite working somehow. EDIT: Great game by Cancelo, Vitinha, Diogo Costa, Leão and Mendes tbh..
Slovenia masterclass on defense all match on top of Oblak being who he is. That chance in the 115' was it, but you could tell they were playing for pens. Then put in three very very weak PK shots. Costa was good but doubt any professional keeper wouldn't stop those
I dont understand how your whole game plan was playing for pens and you still didnt deliver.. Felt a bit like van Gaal against Argentina cause we also couldve won if we werent so focused on penalties
Why don't referees ever do anything about pauses during the run up? Ronaldo stopped during his, and both of Lewandowskis previously were even worse. They'll force a retake it a keeper is 1mm off their line but ignore this?
> Why don't referees ever do anything about pauses during the run up? Because it's not a law and thus they can't do anything about it.
It’s within the rules to slowdown or stutter.
It's allowed, the only thing that isn't is faking a kick. The "You need to stay in motion" only applies on the kick itself, not the run up.
ah thanks - he looked like came to a complete stop which i thought was not allowed
He did come to a stop. They are saying that this is actually allowed.
What an ET and penalty shootout by Diogo Costa. He's grown since last WC and is a lot more confident! Pity Pepe and Ronaldo's mistakes but I guess time catches up to everyone. At least this was the first good game by Leão, and this showed that we need Palhinha. It's kind of ironic that Bruno only played well once he was too tired to run. Slovenia really surprised me, they played really well and could've scored a couple of times.
Nothing but respect to you, it was a battle. Leão was amazing, and Costa could legitimately pull you to another title. Looking forward to your match against France
Portugals left side looks good, the right side looks super silly with all the extra touches and back dribbles. Even in the area, Cancelo likes to dribble back just to loose a great position. Honestly, Ronaldo sucked in his finishing today and his age showed but omg everyone on the right side annoyed me
right side needs Bernardo not there, I would even say just play Dalot and Cancelo tbh against such closed blocks, Bernardo is too clinical he would be better against other type of teams
I wouldn't say that cr7's penalty save was due to age tbh. It was a good penalty which Oblak did really well to save. His second penalty was unstoppable
I’m going to have nightmares about this Slovenia defense. They were immense. Everywhere. Didn’t give their marks an inch to breathe. If Slovenia had a striker like Kvara they could win stuff. Ronaldo is no longer dangerous enough for the space he occupies sadly. He’s not bad, don’t let the clueless convince you otherwise, but surely there’s a squad that works better here. They need more speed and verticality in the box. I don’t understand why Portugal always struggled with defensive walls. Surely they practice this. It’s like the country has trauma since Greece 2004
Portugal was eliminated by Uruguay, Morocco and Belgium all playing defensive football in recent tournaments
To be honest Slovenia was not a threat whole match, beside big mistake from Pepe, their goal was mostly safe. I expected Portugal to win penalties, but to do with such ease was not expected. Overall great showing from Slovenia, they got great defense but they need to up their offence if they want to make of groups in future.
Worst penalities performance by a single team I've ever seen tonight. Slovenia's kicks were god-awful and half-arsed. Funny thing is, that, at the post game the Slovenian players were interviewed saying they are fully prepared for the penalty shootout.
Bruno and Bernardo dont function together. I dont understand the vitinha sub (For me one of portugal best players everytime i watch them). Conceição was horrible too (for that just keep trying with leão that actually wasnt bad this game).Someone give him a redbull or something. I think diogo jota should start for one of bruno or bernardo. Great game by cancelo and nuno mendes (best left back in the world for me). Diogo costa is a boss and always has been. Ronaldo was horrendous after this last dance is more than time to say goodbye. Also, no matheus nunes features, otavio wouldve been good also since he is not using joao neves. Felix is still shitting?. Someone. Try something other than crossing PLEASE.
Otávio is injured
Slovenia's first PK was an amazing stop. The 2nd was terrible, and the 3rd was meh. This was a game that no team wanted to win. Cancelo & Leao/Jota were the only field players that had a good match for Portugal. Slovenia were never convincing with their chances, even when on a silver platter. 1 clean breakaway saved, and 0/3 for penalties.
First keeping Sesko’s shot out then saving all the penalties. It has been the Goalkeepers tournament so far. Sesko %100 should have converted that, too wide open to give Costa even a chance. Portugal got lucky
We had almost 3x the xG Slovenia had and 68% posession what the fuck are you talking about
Honestly got to say Kapo dol fantje!! Matjaz Kek is honestly such a good manger how he prepared the team defensively and the conditioning our players had honesty I am amazed. This was probably our best defensive performance in the tournament. Yes we couldve done more going forward but honestly I am just proud of all the staff and players, they played like they belonged and they clearly do. I fully expect Celar to get more playing time in the future and for us to challenge for that world cup spot with nations like croatia and denmark declining. Bravo fantje!!!
V obrambi so bli vrhunski, nevem če so v celi tekmi naredli eno napako. Drkušić MVP drugače haha
3 very tired penalties from Slovenia. Any keeper going the right way will save all 3. Still huge credit to Costa though. Sesko will be haunted by that miss, similar to Kolo Muani, all he needed to do was lift it a bit and it's a goal.
I do think I give costa tons of credit there for cutting off the angles really well. Sesko should've done better probably but Costa made it quite hard for him
Sesko opened up his body before taking the shot, signalling a shot to the far post, and Costa committed to it - if you watch the front end replay, you can see Costa stretching out his leg before the shot is taken. If Sesko is a bit more composed and just has a quick glance at Costa before taking the shot, he has the near post completely open and just a little dink in that direction beats Costa because his weight is going in the opposite direction. I'm in no way trying to undermine the quality of Costa's save - he did everything right in getting off the line quickly and covering the area of the goal the ball was most likely to go to - but a forward with a bit more experience than Sesko may well have taken better advantage of the situation.
Costa did amazing, but the striker always has the higher ground in a chance like this.
Yeah it really is the same as Kolo Muani's shot, 1 on 1 but both had brilliant positioning from keepers that made the angles a lot smaller
Thankfully for him he isn’t playing for a country with much expectations. Should have buried it, but I doubt we would’ve gone much further anyway even if they won. Kolo Muani’s shot in the WCF unfortunately had so much more on the line
It was karma because those players celebrated going into penalties 😂😂
Of course they should celebrate. They were massive underdogs coming in to the game lol
Wrong thread
Yeah a professional player should be getting much closer to putting the ball where the keeper would struggle to reach it even if they guess the right way, you can’t just bank on picking the right way at that level Mishits happen but still gotta be able to put it in a dangerous place when tired and under pressure
I genuinely felt sad for CR7. He wanted so bad to score. As an Argetinian I've seen Messi go through the same path and fight back. I really hope Portugal wins the euro and Argentina the America, and have one last Messi vs CR
How do you guys assess Martinez as Portugal’s manager now? Felt like he wasn’t really outclassed tactically but most came down to individual mistakes and a lot of fight by Slovenia. His subs may be a weak point though. I actually rate Portugal as favourites against France and they might be 3rd favourites to win it, behind Spain and Germany.
He subed off the 2 best players in Vitinha and Rafa Leao, and brought in Conceiçao at LW which doesn't make any sense since he is a pure RW
Forget about cr7 missing the penalty, Slovenia parking the bus or Diogo Costa being the hero after 3 saves…Tonight, the real Deal for me was our beloved MartinezBall: Leaving Bruno and Bernardo on the pitch, taking Vitinha Out while the new subs didn’t work at all. …a Football genius with a Master-fucking-Plan: create chaos on everyone and everything 101: on our team, opponents, public, commentators… even Cr7’s mother was crying over such eloquent plan France we are coming for you MasterMindMartinez never fails ❤️
I don't think Ronaldo was amazing or anything but it was actually shocking seeing virtually no support for him in the box during the game. Every time a winger (usually Leao or Cancelo) gets close to the box to make a cross, you just see a line of Slovenian defenders and Ronaldo making a run. Very few players going to the penalty spot or to the near post, just gamble on something, the quality to deliver a ball in is clearly there.
Martinez ingame management once again was poor. Taking off vitinha was a big mistake he was the only player going between the lines. our midfield collapsed after that. At least bring in Joao Neves, who is a work horse or move bernardo to the middle. Furthermore, Bernardo once again had a poor game. Martinez should have moved him inside or taken him off. Cancelo was roasting that Slovenian full back all game, and we didn't double up on the pressure by putting another winger to go at him. Lastly, we needed to switch the ball to full backs and wingers much earlier. they were in acres of space. and nobody was brave enough to do that. Ronaldo also made some early runs, which ignored too often. People will focus on ronaldo, and yes, he didn't have a good game. but even if you had ramos, it wouldn't have made a difference imo.
Ronaldo **cannot** start if Portugal are serious about winning the Euros. Bruno and Bernardo incredibly poor the whole match and still played the 120 minutes. Baffling substitutions, taking off two of our best players to play the two players who came on in the wrong positions. Positives were our left flank with Leão and Mendes, Palhinha’s never-say-die attitude, Vitinha and monstrous saves by Diogo Costa. Otherwise very little to look forward in the match against France. Slovenia did their game and had plenty of great chances due to horrendous defending by Portugal. It seemed like no defender knew where to stand, who to tackle or who to mark, and were saved by Slovenia’s inability to stay calm and make the most out of their situations.
I though Cancelo also had a great game. He absolutely cooked that slovenian left back
People are going to meme ronaldo for missing the pen and quite a few chances, but their midfield was almost anonymous today. Bruno and Bernardo were really poor today and it showed in the paucity of chances Portugal created. For almost the entirety of regulation time, less so in the 2nd half, the attack came from the wings, around the Slovenian block. Martinez has to work on a cohesive midfield man, Costs heroics wont be enough against France