Euro 2016: Portugal’s Persistence Gets Them There in the End
After all that, Portugal are the European Champions. Bloody Portugal, with their 72 minutes’ worth of leads all tournament. With their single petulant superstar and their apparent lack of anything else beneath him. It’s not quite the fairytale victory but watching them all celebrate on the pitch with that trophy and it’s hard to feel too critical.
Take Cristiano Ronaldo for example. Are there people out there who hate him? Sure there are. Throwing microphones into the river is one thing but the temper tantrums on the pitch are a bad look. So are the 40+ free kick shots at major tournaments without ever scoring one. It all adds up to a frustrating situation but then take a look at the devastation on his face (and the moth too) when he was injured in the final and try believe the claims that he’s only about himself. If that doesn’t work than check him out later in the game, wearing a tracksuit top and limping around with heavy strapping on his knee, giving out inspirational quotes and pretty much coaching the team. That’s a big deal.
And those teammates that were supposedly so average, well they did it without him. A winning goal in injury time coming from Swansea reject Eder, a man who sat on the bench unused in January as the Swans were knocked out of the FA Cup by Exeter City. Pepe and Jose Fonte were magnificent – except for that one slip by Pepe as Andre-Pierre Gignac’s shot came back off the inside of the post, an inch from a career-defining moment of heroism – and Nani has never looked more assured and mature. The keeper, Rui Patricio, made seven crucial saves in the performance of his life. Renato Sanches wasn’t quite at his best in the final and was sacrificed as the team went to 4-3-3 late in regulation time but he was really good all Euros, crowned the Young Player of the Tournament as a reward. William Carvalho was a commanding defensive midfielder. Joao Mario and Raphael Guerreiro were really good all month.
Point being that this was far from a one-man team. Excuse the wild first hour of that Hungary game and they only conceded two other goals in five games. Defensively they could not have played any better, neutralising the threats of Ivan Rakitic, Robert Lewandowski (aside from the first few minutes), Gareth Bale, Antoine Griezmann and Dimitri Payet. They came through the so-called easier side of the draw but there are no easy games. Is this Portugal side better than Germany, France, Italy or Spain on paper? No, of course not. But the best squad rarely wins these things, it’s the last team standing that gets that honour.
Portugal won just a single game within 90 minutes at Euro 2016. That’s the same total as England managed – both of those wins were against Wales. They’re the first team to win two separate games within extra time at the same Euros and the first to play three extra time games all up. The extra round of knockouts helped, but at the same time this throws water on the idea that France were tired after having 24 fewer hours to recover for the final – Portugal played 60 extra minutes with a shallower squad. Ronaldo didn’t miss a minute until he went off injured in the final, while Rui Patricio played all 720 of them.
The gameplan for the Portuguese definitely revolved around Ronaldo once they got attacking. The rest of the team was shaped in a way that would minimise their goals conceded and manager Fernando Santos was banking on the lad they (cringingly) call CR7 to come up with a moment of genius to be the difference. Turns out that after 48 games for Real Madrid this season and hardly more than a week or two of rest after the Champions League final, seven games in 27 days was a lot to ask. Ronaldo rarely looked like the world beater that we know, the guy who scored 51 times in those 48 Real Madrid games for example. He was awful and wasteful against Iceland (and a sore loser/drawer afterwards), while he missed a penalty against Austria. There were flashes of his brilliance against Hungary and Wales with crucial goals but he also faded out of the Croatia and Poland games.
Part of that is gonna be exhaustion, no doubt. Every player has to deal with that in a tournament like this but it’s tougher when you have a history of niggling muscle injuries. Plus Murphy’s Law says that if you’re your team’s most important player and nobody trusts them without you, you’ll probably pick up a jab to the knee in the final and be subbed off mid-way through the first half. Probably a West Ham player that’ll get ya as well.
But it’s also incredibly tough to find any space when you and Nani (and sometimes Renato Sanches) are the only guys playing forward. Three-man defences with wing backs dropping deep and holding midfielders are going to shut you down for 88 of 90 minutes, most games. If you take your two minute window of opportunity then you get to be a hero, if you don’t and your team was relying on you then the critics will shout loud. So it goes. Portugal did what they had to do. They were damn tough to beat and in the end they outlasted all competitors.
Goddamn their games were boring and almost every one of them was tough to watch. And yet there they were lifting the trophy at the end of it all, a first major title for the Portuguese. Whaddayaknow, right?
For France, meanwhile, this one has to sting. In the same tournament we’ve seen Germany struggle to score penalties and France lose on home turf – two major tournament stereotypes shattered. At this level there is a fine line between triumph and disaster. Didier Deschamps is finding that out as you read this.
In some ways it would have been better to have a squad like Portugal’s rather than the embarrassment of riches he was left with for Les Bleus. Why did he sub Dimitri Payet off? Why didn’t he use Anthony Martial more often? There are countless arguments like that floating around and Deschamps definitely had some weird selections. Look at the first two games where he alternated between a three man forward line and Olivier Giroud all alone with supporting attacking mids. He started with 4-3-3 and switched to 4-2-3-1 in the first game, started the second with 4-2-3-1 and switched to 4-3-3. Constant changes. Moussa Sissoko forcing his way into the team after N’Golo Kante was suspended having been so impressive in the group stage. Ultimately it was moving Griezmann into the middle to play off of Giroud that brought the best out of each of them, France storming through the knockouts like that. When his patchwork defence was broken by a suspension to Adil Rami, in came Samuel Umtiti who proceeded to be absolutely superb at the back – particularly in possession. A breakout run of games for the new Barcelona recruit who Deschamps had never really trusted before that.
For Martial to play, someone else had to be dropped. It’s a tough balancing act but Deschamps – the man known as the Water Carrier in France – didn’t do himself or his team any favours in constantly changing things up at any sign of danger. They were always chasing games, like actively going out and chasing them and while that’s a commendably positive attitude, you also need to trust in the systems you’ve prepared. Otherwise you get players like Paul Pogba running around without any real idea what he’s doing. Does he charge forward or hold back against the counter attacking threat? Buggered if he knows, really. Moussa Sissoko seemed to have some real purpose about him, leaving Newcastle fans demanding where the hell that’d been last season, only to lack the end product. The weight of the occasion probably got them down and Portugal had made a month of sparking frustration in teams.
This was a European Championships that was short on goals. Technically Euro 2016 had the most goals ever scored at this tournament with 108 but 20 extra games will do that. As far as per game stats go, the 2.12 goals were the fewest since 1996 (2.06) and second fewest since 1.93 in 1980 – the year in which the tournament was expanded to eight teams. France found themselves chasing the game in extra time having failed to put away one of the few decent shots that they manufactured. That’s not been a recipe for success, and this ever for a team that specialised in late goals this tournament. But the only times that teams were able to come from behind and win at Euro 2016 were England 2-1 Wales, Croatia 2-1 Spain, France 2-1 Ireland, Iceland 2-1 England and Wales 3-1 Belgium. Out of 51 games. Scoring first was near-essential here and it was Portugal that finally managed that feat. By the time that goal went in it was already too late, France were too cautious in trying to seize the initiative long before that. This was one that they let slip.
If Giroud had taken that shot across the keeper. If Gignac hadn’t scuffed his shot onto the post. Things could have been so different. But that was their problem, Portugal’s victory was more than deserved. In keeping with the nature of international footy these days, they made themselves tough to beat and found a way to get through in close games. Just by staying in contention you give yourself the chance to win these things and that’s a reflection on Portugal’s tournament here but also on Portugal’s European Championship form over the past decade and a half. Quarters in 1996, a Karel Poborsky goal eliminating them in a 1-0 loss to the Czech Republic. Semi-finals in 2000 where a golden goal Zinedine Zidane penalty in the 117th minute condemned them to a 2-1 defeat. Famously they lost 1-0 to Greece in the 2004 final in their own nation while they lost 3-2 to Germany in 2008 in the quarters. Penalties cost them in the semis against Spain in 2012. Eventually, just like Ronaldo in the penalty area, if you keep getting in position then one of them is going to nestle safely in the bottom corner.
So say what you will about Ronaldo and his Hollywood A-List mentality, but the sight of him marshalling the sidelines and pointing at his watch like Sir Alex Ferguson was amazing. Not so much was football’s greatest pest Pepe taking a little chunder on the pitch after the final whistle, though it gives you a good indication of how hard that team worked. Portugal had their so-called golden generation in the 1960s when Eusebio was briefly the most dangerous goalscorer on the planet. There was a resurgence in the late 90s-early 00s led by the legendary Luis Figo. Now they finally have their first major international trophy.
Spare a thought for little Antoine Griezmann though. He now joins Michael Ballack as the only players to lose in both the Champions League and European Championships final in the same year. Ronaldo and Pepe on the other hand…