Portugal is the Euro champion of 2016, and did it with little help from Ronaldo.
Congratulations.
France supporter here. Portugal deserves all of the kudos especially with Ronaldo out so early.
But I’m still stunned at the result.
So Portugal s a better team without CR7. Other than that, they remind me much of Greece winning this thing a few tournaments back.
As far as Euros go, apart from the Wales and Iceland stories, which were admittedly awesome, and the Germany-Italy and Germany-France games, this one was a bit of a bust.
No they are not. With this defense and CR7, they probably would have won it in real regular time.
Wonder if Messi is on suicide watch.
Ultimately, Fernando Santos is the type of manager that wins major international titles even when he doesn’t have a “golden generation” to work with. All of the underdog wins in the last few decades - Portugal today, Greece in 2004, and Denmark in 1992 - have been very structurally sound, defensively minded teams with iron discipline.
Deschamps had somewhat redeemed himself in my eyes prior to the final, particularly by adopting the 4-2-3-1 with Sissoko on the wing and Griezmann in his best position, but his refusal to sub on Anthony Martial for a clearly gassed and increasingly ineffective Moussa Sissoko was a return to previous standards of incompetence. As soon as Portugal abandoned the man-marking scheme they played with for the first 30-40 minutes and parked themselves in their own half, Sissoko was simply out of his depth, as was Deschamps, evidently.
Unbelievable defending by Portugal. France had far more realistic chances against Germany than Portugal. Portugal allowed no threatening direct free kicks, and defended the corners well. Pepe played perfectly and showed no signs of the thigh injury. But the immaculate goaltending of Patricio won it. Somehow, Ronaldo’s departure seemed to leave France discombobulated. They had better movement and build-ups before he left. I’m sure the Ronaldo detractors will hold this against him. The Ballon D’Or race is now very interesting.
After Greece, is this the most unimpressive team to win the tournament?
Offensively? Perhaps. Greece in 2004 were far from an unimpressive team, though - they were the most defensively impregnable national team I’ve witnessed in my lifetime. That Greece team would have made a deep run at almost any major competition.
Wow that was a special goal from Eder to win the game. Is this the best goal ever to win a major final ? I.e. when the team wins by a single goal margin especially late in the game. Certainly I would rate it better than the two fine goals which won the last two World Cup finals.
Ronaldo has a partially torn ACL..
So out for a few months.
As it is, he now deserves a place at the top table of all time greats and be mentioned in the same breath as Pele and Maradona like Messi is. And unlike Messi, he is an excellent captain.
The one that springs to mind for me is the Trezeguet finish to win the Euros in 2000 for France against Italy. It’s from closer in but the skill to finish it as he does, with power into the roof of the net, given the cross arrives behind him, is pretty high order stuff.
Mario Götze’s goal in the 2014 final was not bad either. Unfortunately, that was his only moment of brilliance in the last two years.
Also the one from 2008, when Torres made Lahm and Lehman his bitches.
Oh please don’t remind me, that was such awful defending that it still hurts a bit ;).
They have always been like that - and I say that as a German.
Kudos to Portugal. They did to France what Greece did to them 10 years ago.
Is Ronaldo now in the race for “FIFA World coach of the year”?