Comments on: Day 1: And We’re Off…

By: fústar

fústar — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 12:33:14 +0000

France’s triumph that year was particularly impressive considering that they had poor old Stéphane Guivarc’h up front. Guess how many goals he eventually went on to score for his country? That’s right – one!

Portugal and Germany are scheduled to meet in the semis (and I think they will) so we may get to see exactly how Portugal fare then. Wouldn’t have given them much of a chance of beating Germany before last night, but now I’m not so sure…

P.S: Is it just me or doesn’t (Swiss coach) Kobi Kuhn have a great look of an elderly Jack Lemmon?

By: Fergal

Fergal — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 12:16:30 +0000

They said the same about the French in 98, mind you. They didn’t really have strikers, but the quality of the rest of the team was such that they were always able to scare up goals from somewhere. Germany are the big goal-scoring team this year. It would be interesting to see how Portugal fare against them

By: fústar

fústar — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 11:56:30 +0000

Dave, it’s surprising that Pepe isn’t better known. Didn’t Madrid pay 24 million quid for him or something? I was pretty impressed with Bosingwa too – and, of course, Carvalho is as steady and solid as they come.

Up front it’s a different story. It’s incredible that they’re still relying on Nuno Gomes and haven’t unearthed anybody good enough to parter/replace him.

It’s a problem they’ve had for years. Pauleta may have scored 47 goals for his country but he obviously saved ‘em all for times when I wasn’t watching! In major tournaments he consistently flopped.

We know they’re very good at getting people into advanced positions, so they might get away with it, but in tight, nervy games in the knock-out stages it might come back to haunt them.

By: Dave B

Dave B — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 06:44:50 +0000

Portugal’s Pepe is the New Beckenbauer – the fabled wunderkind who’s been a long time in the post. W Carvalho and both handy and elegant Bosingwa, it’s hard to see P lose many goals. But without a striker?

By: fústar

fústar — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 01:05:34 +0000

Portugal are looking very tasty aren’t they? Two lovely goals tonight, and some great play against tough opposition.

I thought the Turks did ok, in patches, but just didn’t have any real penetration. They’ll still give the other two teams in the group a decent game.

RE: Ronaldo & Dunphy – the whole thing is pretty amusing. Basically Dunphy thinks (as does Giles to a less vehement degree) that Ronaldo is a tit, and it’s this personal dislike that fuels his dismissal of him as a world-class player. It’s not (as you point out) the first time he’s taken such a stand.

Even if Ronaldo is (and he very well may be) a bit of an idiot, I can’t but admire his complete self-confidence and indifference to hostility. He just laps it up and keeps going (and grinning). In terms of his ultimate legacy I still don’t think he’ll prove to be as great as, say, Messi – but that’s probably just me betraying my own bias (I love the little fella!).

Anyway, Deco, Moutinho & others showed (tonight) that Portugal are far from a “one man team”. Semi-finals at least I reckon.

By: Fergal

Fergal — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 00:47:14 +0000

Portugal are looking very tasty aren’t they? Two lovely goals tonight, and some great play against tough opposition.

Ronaldo is hard to like, I’ll admit. Everything about him screams “all flash, no substance”, but after this season I’ve had to reluctantly admit that he’s the real thing. Dunphy, on the other hand has not allowed such trifles like 42 goals in a season to get in the way of his views, and still thinks Ronaldo’s an over-rated show-off. But then he spent the 80′s refusing to admit that Michel Platini was anything better than fair.