And with that the Confederations Cup tour is over. It concluded with the All Whites’ toughest test and also their biggest defeat. Probably not a coincidence, that. It was Portugal and Cristiano Ronaldo and there wasn’t a sane person on the planet who thought this was realistically winnable for NZ (except for within the All Whites camp but they’ve gotta think that).

In the TNC preview of this match, written a couple weeks back, the hope was found in Portugal’s staggered run to the European Championships – in which they only won one game within 90 minutes. The All Whites have some similarities to Iceland, maybe that could be the blueprint for something special. That was an optimistic pre-tournament take – the All Whites also for damn sure don’t have a Gylfi Sigurdsson set piece specialist, not unless you count Bill Tuiloma’s long throws… zzz - because since winning their first major tournament, Portugal have infused quite a lot of youth and energy into this team. In a scary way, they might be better now than they were a year ago.

Take Bernardo Silva, formerly of Monaco and now a hand-picked Pep Guardiola player for Manchester City. Or Andre Silva, the young striker who scored buckets for Porto last season and just signed for AC Milan. Both hit the net in this game while the old legends of Ronaldo and Nani bookended those bangers with goals of their own. Yeah so that’s what Anthony Hudson was dealing with.

Perhaps if Portugal had rested a bunch of players for this one like Mexico did. But unlike Mexico, Fernando Santos has been deliberate in his squad rotation this tournament, avoiding having to ever name a reserve XI like Juan Carlos Osorio did. He made four changes from Mexico to Russia and a further five from Russia to New Zealand, making it hard to tell exactly how a team that still featured Ronaldo, both Silvas, Joao Moutinho, Pepe and Bruno Alves was possible weakened.

On the other side of things, Uncle Tony expectedly gave Tommy Doyle the game at left wingback over Deklan Wynne, who had started both other games. Three games in eight days is a ridiculous amount of football when your job is to hurl yourself up and down the sideline the whole time. Similarly Dane Ingham held his spot despite the pantsing he took against Mexico; slightly surprising but it means the A-B-B rotation at RWB directly mirrors the A-A-B rotation at LWB… if you follow that ‘logic’. Clayton Lewis held firm in central midfield with the usuals everywhere else.

The other chance the Aotearoa lads had was for, as with Mexico, the Portuguese to turn up complacent and lazy. For the first twenty minutes or so you could argue that almost happened. Or you could argue they were warming up for the onslaught that would come once the speedometer swung past the vertical. Hey, for twenty minutes we were the closest to scoring, Woody taking one down on his chest and firing from past the far post straight at the keeper.

But as Fernando Santos would say after the game, they’d seen how New Zealand played against Mexico and they were prepared for it. Not to say that they got pushed around, the kiwis definitely gave as good as they got (just ask Tom Doyle who spent this one in the trenches), but the physical approach that worked against Mexico was pretty much cancelled out here. Nobody bullies Pepe and lives to tell the tale, as you well know.

(contrary to previous implications, Thomas Doyle did indeed survive the match)

Which is why it’s great to be able to say that they didn’t shrink back into the tactics that began this tour, they still looked to create things along the deck like an actual football team. They still tried to bring Wood into the game and tried to work the overlaps with the wingbacks. Does Clayton Lewis honestly make that much of a difference? Well, put it this way: if he’s still playing for Auckland City in a year then it’ll be stunning. Lewis was so often the dude looking to spark those little moves, working nicely with Ingham and playing with a degree of control and patience in the opposition half that we never saw until last game from this team. Dunno if it’s an indictment on Huddo that it took this long or a positive that he was able to tweak it – a lot of things in his tenure can be taken either way to be honest. Let’s lean towards the latter, this was a promising start against the European champions.

Of course it couldn’t last. You know that feeling when the temperature suddenly drops and you can feel it in your bones that it’s about to rain? That’s roughly how it felt twenty minutes into this one. There was an intangible menace to the game and you just knew that Portugal were going to score. Once they got going it was too much to withstand, the movement across, behind and around the defence, the threat that almost every player had to beat their defender. Cristiano Ronaldo was getting up and winning headers, the dude jumps too high for any NZer to be able to compete, and although he nodded his first one straight at Stefan Marinovic, Ricardo Quaresma whipped in a sweet ball soon after which Ronnie thumped off the crossbar. Yeah, the goal was certainly coming.

In the end it was almost like a surrender when it happened. The two Tommies were both competing with Danilo for an in-swinging corner and the three players all tangled up. Danilo got in front of them and Smithy pretty much shoved him. It looked like what actually knocked him down was an inadvertent knotting of legs… but just because it was accidental doesn’t mean it wasn’t a foul. Danilo was denied a goal-scoring opportunity. That’s a spottie right there.

Obviously Ronaldo stepped up to take it and despite later commentary allusions to Marinovic’s spot kick heroics at the Nations Cup once upon a time in Papua New Guinea… Cristiano made no mistake. Mari’s had a strong tournament and should have himself in the shop window for a transfer now but there aren’t many keepers on the planet getting a hand on that sucker.

Then Portugal scored almost immediately after, only a four minute hiatus between celebrations. Although there wasn’t a whole lot of celebrating to be done for it. Uncle Tony made the strange call after going 1-0 down 33 minutes into things to sub off Mike McGlinchey and bring on Bill Tuiloma. No injury, no John Terry hubris, purely tactical. No change in formation either as Tui came on as a midfielder alongside Lewis (who swapped to right CM) and that was it. Presumably it was for a little extra steel in that midfield but… why not simply start with Tui like these bloody articles have been telling you to all along? Weird stuff.

Anyway it wasn’t Tui’s fault that we conceded straight away. He and Ingham were paired up on Quaresma down NZ’s right and you can actually see Tui pointing and yelling at Ingham to drop off but he doesn’t and Quaresma flicks a sweet little ball into the space behind them for the overlapping fullback Eliseu.

That lad takes it to the line and squares it across the six yard box for the hombre Bernardo Silva and it’s a sitter from there with his speed and anticipation. Silva then comes down on the leg of Doyle and rolls his ankle rather badly. Hence the lack of celebration. He’d play on until half-time but didn’t return to the field after the break – instead setting up camp in the dugout with a bollocks-load of strapping and wrapping on that ankle.

The result felt academic as soon as it went 2-0, especially since Portugal hardly looked like letting up. But Anthony Hudson said something interesting at his presser about how the team “never, ever accepted the result”. Many chuckled at Chris Wood saying the All Whites were out to beat Portugal. Clearly that was plenty more than unlikely but you saw that spirit in the second half. Down 2-0, if they could grab a goal to get back into the game then… eh, then Portugal would probably score two more to kill it off. But at least we’d have scored a goal. They kept pushing for that right until the final whistle. Chris Wood had the best of the half-chances as he slid in at the far post after Doyle’s cross had surprisingly snuck through.

The Doyle versus Wynne thing is interesting. I reckon Wynnebags comfortably beats him head to head but I can see the appeal of the dependable Doyle, who’ll never back down from a challenge and always manages to get himself involved. If only he could cross straight, aye? That’s probably a thing you can say about the whole team though.

Andy Durante had a quality game. One of those games we’ve seen so often for the Phoenix where he just reads the play so well. He’s not the quickest defender anymore and it probably took him a couple games to get the pace of this standard of footy but he finished on a high note. Boxall improved from the Mexico game too, while Smith was mostly solid but a couple mistakes let him down. That’ll happen against a team like Portugal, at least we got to see him playing with some fire in the belly again – he’s at his best when he’s playing like a goddamn thug.

As for Ryan Thomas there isn’t much more you can say without repeating yourself. Another classy performance in the midfield here, he’s a step above with the decisions he makes on the ball. Plus this time we saw a bit more of Thommo getting around the outside of players on the dribble. He’s a super talent, that bloke. If anyone’s getting a cheeky transfer from the All Whites after this it’ll be him, he’s already spoken of higher ambitions than humble PEC Zwolle.

Save some praise for Marco Rojas too, this was his finest match of the tour as he brought all sorts of flair to things. As the small chap running off the big chap for a team that doesn’t hold a lot of possession, he’s usually gonna be the first player to fade out of the game but he’s learning to stay alert. Only limited returns for his efforts but you can see how on another day, against another team, there might have been more than a consolation prize for him.

Although if he’d fed the ball through to a clean-on Chris Wood near the end instead of shooting over on the volley from distance then he might have had an assist. Just saying, Wood had an open path to goal there. (He was offside by the time the ball was struck but that’s with the ol’ shooter’s wind-up).

Clayton Lewis was subbed off for Kosta Barbarouses with 25 to play. Probably because he’s an amateur and this was a very professionally paced game. As for Kosta, for a player who does so much fantastic work off the ball… how is he so wasteful when he gets it at his feet? Always making the right runs in the right areas closing down the right guys or whatever and as soon as he gets the footy he usually loses it. Hudson saw it first, don’t forget. He dropped him a few months back. When Monty Patterson gets a bit more refined and when Myer Bevan cracks the senior team that place might be in trouble again.

Unless he’s saved by Shane Smeltz. As the old fella subbed on for Durante with quarter of an hour left the thought did pass through the mind that this might be his last international cap. He’s not first XI any longer and he’s playing kinda far away these days (again). Would imagine he wants to see this thing through to the intercontinental playoffs but the clock is ticking for Smeltzy.

If you’re keeping track of those subs then, yes, we played the last fifteen minutes with Wood, Smeltz, Kosta, Marco and Thommo all on the field together. Against Portugal. Not quite as suicidal as Darren Bazeley’s attacking subs with the Under-20s against USA a few weeks back but still a couple degrees of optimism beyond what was safe. Again, not sure whether to applaud Uncle Tony for his guts or slap him for turning a 2-0 loss into a 4-0 loss.

The last two goals were directly because of the limited numbers. Andre Silva, having already fluffed one half-decent chance, was played in by Quaresma who’d picked the pocket of Doyle on halfway – Doyle clearly trying to organise an option behind him as he tracks back towards the ball but with only two CBs Smith couldn’t shake free.

Silva had space in front of him and two back-tracking defenders. He picked on Smith, wisely, and burned him for 3-0. Could argue Marinovic might have done better. Smith definitely should’ve done better. Same for Ingham on the last goal who got caught flat-footed by Nani (who replaced his old Man United mate Ronaldo with twenty left) and that was all the invitation he needed.  

As impressive as the Mexico performance? Of course not. Portugal didn’t let it happen. But the way they kept adhering to that more positive style of play was hugely encouraging. Still don’t think it needed 270 minutes of goalless long ball to prove that point, still at least we got there in the end and at least now we’ve seen that we can threaten some of the best in the world that way – fingers crossed we get some razzle dazzle against the Solomon Islands in September now.

It takes more than sporadic threats to beat the European champions though. Ronaldo and friends were four goals too good even with more left in the tank but just remember that this is a young All Whites team, most of whom should be around for many years to come and many of whom who’d never played at this level before. This is not the end of the journey, this is only the beginning. Or… somewhere in the middle maybe. Either way they’re headed in the right direction.

Ronaldo’s scored 75 international goals now but (as far as we know) he’s never whacked at an ad on The Nichey Niche, so feel free to do so and consider yourself a superior person than him... and support the Cache in the process.