The Portuguese NT Thread

[K3nzo]

Postiga was unlucky! He was about to go in, Scolari was already giving him the last indications when Tonel got injured and got subbed by Andrade! Postiga look said it all!

 

[Luis Ah-Hoy]

Nuno "L'Oreal" Gomes is crap and Postiga should've stepped in for the second half...

Portugal cannot depend in such a weak striker... tsc...

 

[Paulo Da Silva]

Gomes is a good striker, and Postiga seems to be getting better. Hopefully Almeida can keep growing, and hopefully Vaz Te can get the **** out of Bolton and begin to play. We have decent strikers

 

[NightCrawler]

Finnaly I found this forgotten thread

Lista dos 22 convocados:

Guarda-redes: Ricardo e Daniel Fernandes

Defesas: Fernando Meira, Jorge Andrade, Miguel, Manuel da Costa, Caneira, Paulo Ferreira e Ricardo Carvalho.

Médios: Petit, Deco, Hugo Viana, João Moutinho, Raul Meireles e Tiago.

Avançados: Cristiano Ronaldo, Hélder Postiga, Hugo Almeida, Nani, Nuno Gomes, Quaresma e Simão.

Just to ask, who the hell is Daniel Fernandes??

 

[Vinnie Jones]

PAOK´s keeper. He is actually a pretty decent prospect. Anyways no real surprise on that list and i agree with those choices.

 

[Filipower]

yeah tat's probably what we have best in terms of players right now(except perhaps for quim/paulo santos(the latter is in better form doing great lately) bu i understand the 'rotation')..

 

[Paulo Da Silva]

Nani should not be there. Quaresma is arguably the best player in our league for two years and doesnt get called up, Nani plays consistantly like crap over the past 3-4 months, complains about his pay, causes unrest in the Sporting dressing room over player wages and gets called up. Ridculous

PS WE HAVE A CANADIAN IN THE NATIONAL TEAM, THAT CANT SPEAK A WORD OF PORTUGUESE, AND A FRENCHIE/MORROCAN WHO SPEAKS VERY LITTLE TO NO PORTUGUESE. BOTH PLAYERS THAT NEVER LIVED IN PORTUGAL OR PLAYED IN PORTUGAL, CONTRIBUTED TO PORTUGUESE SOCIETY, YET NOBODY SAYS NOTHING ABOUT THAT. RANT OVER SORRY FOR CAPS

Maniche still has a spot on this team, very ingrateful Scolari is leaving off OUR TEAMS MVP in the past Euro and World Cup.

After watching the PSG-SLB games i realized Portugal had (or still has) a GREAT STRIKER, Scolari was just to dumb to use him properly...Sorry Pauleta for ever calling you worthless


My Starting Line-up
----------------------Ricardo--------------------------
Miguel-------Carvalho--------Andrade---------P.Ferreira
----------------Petit----------------------------------
---------------------------Deco-----------------------
Quaresma-----------Simao----------------------Ronaldo
---------------------Hugo Almeida---------------------

Simao, Quaresma and Ronaldo will be rotating, That'll leave the Belgium defense completely confused.

Almeida has been scoring some big goals as of late, and Tiago plays like CRAP for the national team

 

[Nakamura]

Actually, Simão can't play against Belgium. He's suspended for one game, so he'll only be available for the match against Serbia.

And criticizing Scolari because of Pauleta is just insane... It's just another chance to bash Scolari for anything. First of all, Pauleta was always a great striker for us and unfairly criticized lots and lots of times. Funny how those who criticized him unmercifuly are now saying it's Scolari's fault. Secondly, in the NT he played in the right position for him, the only thing is that he was very alone upfront many times, but that's because historically we've always played with only one striker for the past decade. And Pauleta also had the misfortune of not being on form and very inspired in the big competitions (EC and WC). And even considering those failures, I don't think that Pauleta becoming the best scorer ever for our NT and consantly scoring s***load of goals, being the best scorer in the qualifications is not knowing how to use him...

And if you criticize Scolari for Pauleta not playing very well in those situations, by the same set of mind, you have to praise him for making Maniche play like hell at a time when he was absolute crap at club level... But whatever, I shouldn't even pay attention to this kind of stuff anymore.

Anyway, about what matters: those are good calls, pretty much the best we have now. About Nani, it's true he's not been playing well, but considering we need a winger because of Simão's suspension, he's the best we got after those that are already there. These two game will be extremely important and also extremely hard. We HAVE to win against Belgium and get at least a draw against Serbia! I'll hopefully be at Alvalade to support our country!

 

[MaSsiVe]

Quaresma is arguably the best player in our league for two years and doesnt get called up

he's on the list.

 

[Moreira_Benfica]

i think he means that when he played bad he wouldn't get called up but nani is playing bad now and still is getting called up

 

[::shinji::]

I'd like to see Djalo make the NT sooner rather than later

 

[Paulo Da Silva]

Massive, I meant that Quaresma had a great season last year and was never called up, while Nani who has shown very little does, but since Simao cant play i understand the call-up

I'd like to see Djalo make the NT sooner rather than later

Djalo and Almeida playing together would be a very interesting combo

Nakamura, i was not bashing Scolari, there is no way one can bash what he has done, but i do believe he could have done better. Hes a great motivator, but he is not so good tactically, always sticking to a 4-5-1 al the time, no matter what the score is. His subsititutions are predictable and never changed anthing, and that was the reason why we lost against Greece and France, both teams were motivated, but also were much stringer than us tactically. Plus Portugal has not had such a strong NT than the one Scolari has inherited, and most will agree about that.

About Pauleta, yes he was leading scorer during Qualifying, but most his goals were against Albania,s Liechstenstein and teams of those calibre. Playing on his own is failry easy, but against teams like Holland, Greece, France... all had Great worldclass defenders that could easily handle Pauleta on his own. This was constantly happening and Scolari never changed his attitude and tactic to better use players like Pauleta and thats a fact that you cannot argue with, and it MAY have cost us even better achievements, albeit what the man has done is still great

 

[BayernFan01]

Hugo needs to play, he is in great form for Bremen right now

 

[SCP19O6]

About Pauleta, yes he was leading scorer during Qualifying, but most his goals were against Albania,s Liechstenstein and teams of those calibre.

Like Benfica?

 

[Moreira_Benfica]

Like Benfica?

Who Did Sporting get in todays UEFA Cup draw?

 

[Paulo Da Silva]

Like Benfica?

Whats wrong with u ...retard

i think Moreira_Benfica said it all

 

[Moreira_Benfica]

Deco isn't playing Saturday.. hes having hand surgery this week

 

[Tiago_10]

Like Benfica?

To be honest his goal in Paris was a cross, he didn't intend to score. The goal he scored in Lisbon was Moretto's fault. Both flukes.

 

[Nakamura]

Nakamura, i was not bashing Scolari, there is no way one can bash what he has done, but i do believe he could have done better. Hes a great motivator, but he is not so good tactically, always sticking to a 4-5-1 al the time, no matter what the score is. His subsititutions are predictable and never changed anthing, and that was the reason why we lost against Greece and France, both teams were motivated, but also were much stringer than us tactically. Plus Portugal has not had such a strong NT than the one Scolari has inherited, and most will agree about that.

About Pauleta, yes he was leading scorer during Qualifying, but most his goals were against Albania,s Liechstenstein and teams of those calibre. Playing on his own is failry easy, but against teams like Holland, Greece, France... all had Great worldclass defenders that could easily handle Pauleta on his own. This was constantly happening and Scolari never changed his attitude and tactic to better use players like Pauleta and thats a fact that you cannot argue with, and it MAY have cost us even better achievements, albeit what the man has done is still great

Ok, I now understand what you were saying and I do agree with you, Paulo. Scolari isn't a very good tactician and maybe he could have found a better way to make use of Pauleta. But even so, the truth is that the system we play the best at is 4-5-1 and to change it we would have to sacrifice something from our midfiled and I'm not sure if that would have worked well... But it was a situation that could be considered and a better tactics coach might have found a way to do that, it's true.

Anyway, I also maintain what I said: despite everything, Pauleta was a great striker for us and Scolari had no major responsibility for him not showing up at the big stages when it really mattered, because although it is true a different tactical approach might have made things easier for him, the bottom line still was the fact he was uninspired in those situations...

-------------------------------------------------------

Is anyone else going to the game on Saturday? I'm going with two of my friends, we bought the tickets yesterday. Last time the three of us went to see a game from our NT live it was also at Alavalade and against Russia, that magical 7-1 night. If this time it goes even 1/2 as good as it did that time it would already be awesome!

 

[Funky--K]

Like Benfica?

oh c'mon you guys, it's a good one