Portugal in the 21st Century – The Cost of Gold

Alex Dieker

11th September 2021 | 11:15 PM

The European Championships this summer were a lesson in team play, for both the robust attacking outfits and the overly conservative. Disregarding his country’s catenaccio history, Roberto Mancini looked to dominate play even against the brilliant Spanish, the summer’s premier ball-hoggers, and Italy were crowned eventual tournament winners on the back of brilliant team goals. Roberto Martinez’s Belgium set up with three defenders and focused heavily on attacking play, as did a somewhat lackluster Germany. On the flipside, France were unable to repeat their 2018 triumph with Didier Deschamps sticking to a pragmatic tactical setup. Gareth Southgate’s Three Lions similarly played deep and found few moments of true attacking promise, but their cohesiveness worked wonders. 

And then there was Portugal. They, like France and England, typically played deep, negative football, but their only respite came from one man, not their teamwork or cohesion. Ronaldo at 36 years old is still one of the world’s most prolific forwards and, by a distance, his country’s top player. Despite many of his goals this summer coming from the penalty spot, his movement in and around the box was the most threatening aspect of Portugal’s blunt attacking force. However, unlike England, whose success boiled down to Southgate’s pension for balancing defensive solidity with sporadic forward thrusts, Portugal were unenthusiastic whilst defending and despondent with the ball. The competition’s defending champions possessed no apparent gameplan once they had the ball, despite being a team flush with Premier League talent. This renewed Seleçao, a much more talented side than that in 2016, were somehow more lost and unenthusiastic than ever before. And with Ronaldo soon to retire, the Portuguese need a gameplan. Quickly.

I posit that any long-term strategy the Iberian country sets out to enact must focus less on the individual talent they have, but on a broader ambition that synthesizes club success and managerial excellence. In fact, the strategy should aim to use Portugal’s world-class players not just as an effective unit (for once) but to reshape the game as we know it. To explain, I must take us back seventy years to a time when smaller European nations fared much better on the international scene. Though the laws of a globalist transfer market dictate the impoverishment of countries like Portugal relative to the giants, some of the lessons learned can be applied to their current failings. They must be applied, for if they wait too long, it won’t be just Cristiano’s talent the team watches wither away. 

Portugal in 2016 were, by consensus, quite lucky to win the tournament, for their lack of imaginative attacking restricted their chances on goal. (Their semi-final win over Wales was their only victory in 90 minutes.) It was confirmation for many that these international tournaments lend themselves to conservative tactics, that blunting opponents’ moves comes before considering one’s own forward runs. Yet the Euros and World Cups have never been about defensiveness above all; in fact, these tournaments are where talented teams should come together to produce wonderful, revolutionary tactics that influence a generation. 

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