And the sad thing is that bringing him off the bench is even a sympathy gesture at this point.
Day 17: Morocco vs Spain | Portugal vs Switzerland (Last 16 7&8)
- Thread starter Samid
- Start date
"Here I am for maximum 20 minutes in the field. I demand every ball. Flap my arms. It's clear what I want. Opposition only focus on me. They play best game of their life. Now Leao comes in field and shoots on goal himself. Goalkeeper acts like amateur. I have never been disrespected as much in my life."
That was your first mistake
It really was
Didn’t Tunisia score in the 58th minute at which point Frances big guns were brought on to no avail?
France are totally beatable
It works when you have Torres and Villa up front and it some of your midfielders like Iniesta can score goals if needed. But with the current generation of players Spain cannot play uber possesion football without falling short.
Portugal on paper, have probably the second best set of players in this WC, behind Brazil. Despite that, I never pegged them as one of the favourites because I assumed that Ronaldo would be starting every game and stinking it up like he's done for United this season.That was utterly awesome from Portugal. The best performance from any team at this tournament by a huge distance; and the best I've ever seen them play at any tournament in my lifetime. They're second favourites now given the draw, and nobody's gonna want to face them.
Second: unusually among England fans, I was always confident heading into this World Cup that we could reach the semis, and I still am. I genuinely think we'll beat France, however hard it'll of course be. But I was also horribly wary, even fearful, of Portugal - and that was before they went up so many levels tonight. Even average Portugal sides are horrible to play against; they have so much knowhow and keep the ball fantastically well. But this Portugal? Yikes!
Kind of shocked last night when I realized Ronaldo wasn't starting. Maybe Ten Hag gave the Portugal coach a courtesy phone call and report, who knows?
Or you know maybe the antics with the Bruno/Ronaldo goal was a pain for many players and they have spoken with the coach 1:1 several times how Ronaldo is a pain and not a team player and he listened?
Also agree that Portugal is underestimated despite doing well in Nations League, Youth Teams and winning euros not so far back
No WC games today! 
What do we do?
Life sucks!
What do we do?
Life sucks!
That was 3/4 years ago. After CR7’s first season at Juventus when he was still a phenomenal player capable of destroying Atletico almost on his own… Since then Santos has screwed up massively and was at risk of missing this WC. They failed the group stage behind France and recently Spain in the last 2 NL editions.
They do have a golden generation now though.
Felix and Bernardo are the engine for Portugal for me. Both players can blow pass a defender if they play too tight. This makes it hard to defend, you can't put too much pressure on them and if you put token pressure they can make penetrating passes. That's what Spain lacks.
Totally. But now we haven't seen then play anyone good without him so they're a bit of a mystery side. My gut is that we go out to France, who then knock out Portugal before losing to Brazil in the final.
Apparently Ronaldo is refusing to train with the subs now. This is getting comical now
Probably for the best seeing as relationships around the world are feeling the strain of two weeks on non-stop footballNo WC games today!
What do we do?
Life sucks!
Can't wait for the Piers Morgan interview where he blows the lid on the Portugal squad
That’s the thing, when they have Torres and Villa, they played possession based football with the intent of delivering to their strikers. Now they play possession based football just for the sake of it and spend the game passing sideways ala LVG.
And if Alonso had started Arrascaeta since the first game the history of this group would have been completely different.
I know, that's the one thing I'm pissed off about. It was always first or bust in that group and you are now getting all the upside.
To win the World Cup you need to survive four knockout games. You can't deliberately choose the path with 4 hard games, it's idiotic.
Disagree. That's Bruno and Bernardo.
The only good side on this is that Ugarte and Coates came back to the club. Completely bonkers you play a WC and you get back to your club without holidays to compete. I am feeling a lot of players who are playing on the knockouts will be completely burned out during the season, won't be surprised if those who are playing better now will be the ones who will completely drop off their level.
Yeah, I don't understand why people are so excited about our players going deep. Chuffed for them, sure, but it seems many are projecting that to us having a great season going forward and I'm worried it will be the opposite.
It's a big concern. Imagine trying to pick yourself up immediately after a draining WC for Forest at home.
Sounds like he seriously needs help. Someone to talk him straight. Man up, be an amazing captain and we will shower you in praise as a driving factor behind our success. Instead he brings down team morale. Wouldn't surprise me if he gets sent home for this.
What Was comical to me was to watch Ramos get interviewed after his hattrick. Reporter asked if Ronaldo had spoken to him ahead of the game and you could see Ramos lied through his teeth claiming Ronaldo had spoken to him like he speaks to all teammates as a captain.