craig1985 said:At the ridk of incurring isso's wrath, I just can't stand the Portugal team. Over-rated IMO.
While the current Portugal team has looked pretty woeful despite having a bunch of excellent players, to call them overrated is a bit rich (although their #3 FIFA ranking is ridiculous, their Elo rating of #12 is pretty reasonable).
Portugal have a HORRIBLE manager (Carlos Querioz) who has pretty much epic failed every top job he's been appointed to. Failed to qualify Portugal for Euro 92 and World Cup 94 when he managed them the first time. He won jack-shit with Sporting in the mid-90s when they had people like Figo, Paolo Sousa and Stan Valckx (a criminally underrated centre-back in his day). Had a poor year at Real Madrid when he got that chance, although his lack of control over transfer policy does partially absolve him there... And now he has Portgual looking like a 2nd rate nation....
*end of rant about Querioz*
That said Portugal has posted very good results over the last decade. They woz robbed of a chance to have a penalty shootout for the final spot with France in EURO 2000. They were clearly the best team in EURO 2004 and only lost because the Greeks were lucky and content to stink up the joint with digusting football. In 2006 they were in the semis and lost a very competitive game to the French, and in 2008 were looking very good in the group stages, but made the (IMO) big mistake of resting some of the stars in the final group game when they'd already clinched a quarter spot... Always leads to those stars losing their edge and they subsequently lost to Germany in the 1/4ers when they were simply outworked by a sharper German team who did play their important players in the final group game.
Portugal have been a consistently excellent team and were unlucky not to get better results over the last decade. They've always played exciting, great football and have made every big tournament more entertaining. They look mediocre now because *Surprise Surprise* they have have a thoroughly incompetent manager they should've never hired in the first place. I don't expect big things from them in RSA, but if they find a good manager to replace Carlos 'O Idiota' Querioz after the WC I will expect big things from them again. They have a great crop of young players who can definitely be a major force in years to come[/RANT]