Roberto Martínez’s Portugal walks firm and solid through this Euro Cup. Along with Spain and Germany, it is the team that has shown the best performance so far in the championship. It has had to get rid of two tough rivals such as the Czech Republic and Türkiye. This Saturday he suffered less than in the premiere with the Czechs. He scored three goals and captured that mold of a dominant and offensive team that has an extraordinary list of players who are distributed among the best clubs in Europe. This is not Fernando Santos’ timorous Portugal. This Portugal does not speculate and has a clear plan from possession of the ball to hurt its rivals. He can play slow, accelerate in the middle and run dizzying transitions. Perhaps she has not yet achieved the fluency of Spain or Germany’s first game, but she is a serious candidate to win the title on July 14 in Berlin.
0
Altay Bayindir, Ferdi Kadioglu, Zeki Çelik, Abdülkerim Bardakci, Samet Akaydin, Yunus Akgün, Kaan Ayhan, Orkun Kökçü, Hakan Çalhanoglu, Kerem Aktürkoglu, Baris Alper Yilmaz, Yusuf Yazici (Orkun Kökçü, min. 45), Kenan Yildiz (Kerem Aktürkoglu , min. 57), Ismail Yüksek (Kaan Ayhan, min. 57), Arda Güler (Yunus Akgün, min. 69) and Merih Demiral (Samet Akaydin, min. 74)
3
Diogo Costa, Nuno Mendes, Rúben Dias, João Cancelo, Pepe, João Palhinha, Rafael Leão, Vitinha, Bruno Fernandes, Bernardo Silva, Cristiano Ronaldo, Rúben Neves (João Palhinha, min. 45), Pedro Neto (Rafael Leão, min. 45), Nélson Semedo (João Cancelo, min. 67), António Silva (Pepe, min. 82) and João Neves (Vitinha, min. 87)
Goals
0-1 min. 20: Bernardo Silva. 0-2 min. 27: Samet Akaydin. 0-3 min. 55: Bruno Fernandes
Referee Felix Zwayer
Abdulkerim Bardakci (min. 24), Rafael Leao (min. 38), Zeki Celik (min. 41), Samet Akaydin (min. 41), João Palhinha (min. 44)
Turkey, without its two great talents, Real Madrid’s Arda Güler and Juventino’s Yildiz, could only hold out for 20 minutes. His coach, the Italian Vincenzo Montella, had warned in the preview that the physical data revealed fatigue in the pair of virgueros who have dazzled the Turkish fans. It was disheartening for Ottoman fans to see them on the bench. Montella must have thought that this was not his game. Their big battle will be on the last day against the Czechs, in which they will have to certify qualification for the round of 16 as second or third in the group. The Turkish fans only had to chant his name, mainly Güler’s, when Portugal’s goals fell. Montella granted him the last 20 minutes, when Portugal already had three goals in their bag.
However, the start of the meeting was guerrilla and lively. The Portuguese team began to impose itself which took a while to adjust. From the start he found a dynamic and thriving Türkiye that played with its truth. Faced with the number of individual duels that the Portuguese pressure posed throughout the field, Montella ordered direct and vertical play. And he cost Portugal a couple of serious threats. Akturkoglu was half a foot away from finishing off a cross that crossed Diogo Costa’s six-yard box. Between Yilmaz, Yunus and Köckü they fought against Pepe and Rubén Días. When these two drew the line, Türkiye began to gasp.
Taking note of what the Turks intended to play, it was Palinha, Vitinha, Bernardo Silva and Cancelo who put the machine to work. There, a more authoritarian and confident Portugal emerged with the ball in the opponent’s field. In a combination between Nuno Mendes and Leão, the Turkish defensive system was blown up. The cross behind the PSG side was left dead by Bardacki. Bernardo Silva caught him and finished him off with a violent screw, at mid-height and next to the post. The goal was an example of how Portugal loads the area with finishers to accompany Cristiano Ronaldo. He left without scoring, but he directly and indirectly starred in the sauce of the match. First, the presence of his wife Georgina created a tremendous stir in the stands surrounding his seat. Afterwards, Cristiano let a spontaneous child approach him and posed for the daring child to take a selfie. Already with the second attempt, Cristiano got upset. He wanted to score and the interruptions broke the rhythm of the game. There were two other spontaneous players who managed to jump onto the field and another couple who were stopped on the lines. Security was continually called into question and the game was stopped on too many occasions. The suitcase carousel was nothing more than this society’s reflection of the image enthroned on social networks. Tell me who you pose with and I’ll tell you how much you’re worth, even if it’s in followers.
After conceding the first goal, Turkey barely swung its tail a couple of times and ended up handing over the game with the goal that is on its way to becoming the most absurd of the championship. Cancelo gained an anticipation in the center of the field, but his control was lost and the ball went softly from a rebound towards Ayhan. He played the ball towards his goalkeeper Bayindir, trusting his intuition. He did not look at his goalkeeper’s position and the ball sailed towards the goal line without any Turkish defender being able to stop it.
It was with that second goal that the Turkish fans began to remind Montella that Güler was on the bench. He continued to heat it up in the second half. And again, shortly before Portugal scored the third goal, the 40,000 Turkish throats again claimed the boy. Bruno Fernandes scored after a generous gift from Cristiano Ronaldo. He gave the ball to the United midfielder so he could push the ball as he pleased.
Probably in other times, Cristiano Ronaldo would have executed the shot, but he knew that the assist made him the player with the most assists in the history of the tournament with seven. A record is always a record for Cristiano.
You can follow The USA Print in Facebook and xor sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.
