You know, before Scolari coached, the achievements of Portugal’s national team, the main team of the golden generation, in international competitions were almost bleak, except that it was really amazing to reach the semifinals of the European Cup in 2 years. At other times, Ji was playing soy sauce (he failed to qualify for the group stage of the European Cup in 96, but fell behind the Czechs. He didn’t even make it to the finals in 1994 and 1999). After his arrival, Portugal won the second place in the European Cup and the fourth place in the World Cup.
Even in the era of Eusébio, Portugal did not win so many honors in international competitions, which shows Scolari’s ability.
Despite this, the fans’ evaluation of Scolari is still mixed. The reason is simple: the coach used many unconventional means in the game to make many people feel contempt. For example, in the first game of the World Cup in 2002, Turkey was fined for a wonderful performance by rivaldo, which directly led to the success of the Xingyue Corps in Brazil. The red and yellow card battle between the World Cup in 1996 and the Netherlands made Basten’s youthful orange army fail in the last 16 …
Generally speaking, Scolari is indeed a very good head coach at the national team level. His coaching methods and management methods are also very suitable for Portugal, a team with more luxuriant but less tough skills. However, compared with Scolari, Scolari is really not suitable for coaching those bigname cloud clubs, because there are more stars there and their tolerance for the head coach is much lower than that in the national team.
After all, in the national team, the contact between players and coaches is quite limited. Even if some players are dissatisfied with the way the head coach manages the team, they will generally endure any contradiction. Even if they meet in the competition year, they will practice together for more than a month at most. Most players will not fall out with the head coach in the competition, but in the club, except for the offseason and the national team competition day, players and coaches meet almost every day. The probability of conflict is naturally much higher than that in the national team.
It’s like when most people get along with their classmates on weekdays, they will have some contradictions or conflicts, and occasionally they will fight and fight, but when you attend a class reunion after graduation, you will generally not think of these unpleasant things, even if someone occasionally makes a slip of the tongue at the party, it will not affect the atmosphere. In recognition, players are in the national team and in the club, which is similar to this foundation. In the national team, they tend to be more lenient, but in the club, they will be somewhat vengeful.
Now it’s time to return to the stadium after the 15minute halftime. The players from both sides fought fiercely again and recovered some of their physical strength. After halftime, the Italian players did launch several offenses, but there were endless small moves and targeted fouls in Portugal. These offenses were rudely interrupted by their opponents just after they became a threat, which did not pose enough threat to Portugal.
Although relying on compressed backcourt and foul tactics to resist the Italian offensive, Portugal’s attack also did not face the dilemma of not being able to play. Portugal’s first choice in the front line, pauleta, almost missed half a dozen scoring opportunities at half time, and this situation did not improve at half time.
Even so, Scolari didn’t change pauleta, because the Brazilian coach knew in his heart that substitute seats Gomez and Postiga would be even worse in pauleta, but because of technical characteristics, these opportunities were ruined. If they were changed, they would probably have to play stealth on the spot.
Scolari’s past six years as a coach in Portugal did not achieve the same great success as in the World Cup in Korea and Japan, mainly because Portugal has never had a powerful offensive combination like 3R, which made Scolari’s tactical routine unable to exert its greatest power.
Scolari is also unlucky. When he first coached Portugal, although he caught the tail of the golden generation, the striker was pauleta Gomez Postiga, a secondrate commodity who was not good at fighting hard, which led to Portugal’s defeat in the 4 th European Cup and the 6 th World Cup. It was hard to wait until Cristiano Ronaldo grew up in Euro 2008. As a result, the midfield was seriously degraded due to the retirement of the golden generation and the aging of other key players in the team. The new generation of Anderson and Nani were both hours old, which led to Portugal’s overall strength slipping further and falling out of the ranks of the firstclass teams in Europe.
The semifinal of the European Cup with Italy can be said to be the best proof that Portugal’s striker is not strong. Although Italy’s defense is tight enough, pauleta still got a lot of opportunities in the Portuguese midfield composed of Cristiano Ronaldo, Costa and Figo, but unfortunately, Starr and others kept an eye on him and he was unable to turn these opportunities into hosts and needed goals badly.
In this way, as time goes by, the game has entered a whitehot stage, but the score has not changed. The score is still shining on the big screen of Alvarad Stadium, quietly waiting for someone to come out and rewrite this number.
Chapter 127 Leading
oh! What a pity! This is the first time that paulo futre, the commentator of the game, has expressed such regret for so many times. The Portuguese celebrity felt very sorry for pauleta’s frequent opportunity to score goals. Cristiano Ronaldo’s breakthrough on the left has attracted most of the Italian defense forces. Costa’s transition and Figo’s ball are also in place. pauleta can give Portugal a lead with a touch when needed, but it is a pity that he is still a step behind and the ball is directly confiscated by Buffon, who is guarding the door.
If Portugal doesn’t have a more capable striker, it will be very difficult for them to win this game. At this time, another commentator sitting on the live broadcast, former Italian coach Paolo Maldini, spoke. From the performance of Portugal in the past, we can see that coach Scolari obviously intends to let striker pauleta play the role of midfielder behind Sapporo, Cristiano Ronaldo and Figo, and strive for more opportunities to attack from behind, that is, let these people have a longrange kung fu midfielder to complete the final blow. It must be said that in grapes. Without a firstclass striker, this is indeed a way to solve the problem of their own scoring ability … but he didn’t expect that the Italian boys were not fooled by this trick. Instead of defending pauleta, they firmly blocked the 30meter area in front of the door, especially the front of the restricted area. Defending pauleta is only the most common area, and the defense root has not been targeted. This way of defense makes it difficult for Portuguese players to get the longrange opportunity by moving and handing. They had to give the ball more to pauleta in front, and the latter’s ability and technical characteristics determined that it was difficult for him to get a shot in Sta, Materazzi and Buffon.
Old Maldini, the coach who led the Italian national team to win the World Cup and the European Cup in succession, saw through Scolari’s tactical arrangement at a glance and found out the hidden tricks.
… Futre didn’t respond to the old Maldini’s remarks at the first time because he knew in his heart that the old Maldini’s evaluation was quite accurate and pauleta’s performance in this game was really too weak. Although he was a little dissatisfied with the old Maldini’s contempt for pauleta, he didn’t refute his remarks.
Would you rather let pauleta get a direct shot in the penalty area than relax the blockade of the midfield? At the same time, watching the players of both sides on the sidelines and commanding Scolari on the sidelines, Scolari thought, just like the old Maldini inferred, Scolari really intended to let pauleta attract the attention of Italian players in front and create shooting opportunities for Figo and them behind him.
However, to Scolari’s surprise, Italian players with extremely rich defensive experience are not as good as him, or pauleta’s ability has not reached the level that makes them pay so much attention.
You know Materazzi and Starr, they all play against vieri, Shevchenko, Trezeguet and Crespo in Serie A every day. What scenes have they never seen? A mere pauleta root is not worth their treatment.
If even strikers of pauleta’s level need their close defense, it would be too fall in price. Worse, compared with all Italian players in pauleta, they are more threatening than Figo and Costa behind him.
Scolari is also quite impressed by this situation. After all, coaching the national team is different from coaching the club. If there is a position in the club where the strength is insufficient, it can be solved by signing. In order to deal with this problem in the national team, there is no other way but to expect new people to emerge or someone to suddenly break out …
Now Portugal obviously doesn’t have the ability to solve the problem of striker, which has been bothering them for several years. Since Eusébio retired, Portugal has never trained a top striker.
If it weren’t for this, Scolari wouldn’t have made this tactic to strengthen the attack power in midfield, and he wouldn’t have given up the front line.
The most important thing is that Italy is not against Portugal in previous lives. The Netherlands relies more on the individual ability of the players than on defense. The defense of the Apennines of the Orange Legion is obviously more specific and more rigorous, which allows them to better defend the Portuguese midfield offensive and avoid being pulled out of the goal by opponents through movement and ball.
Noting that it is difficult for Portugal to play on the offensive end, trapattoni did not directly order the team to strengthen the counterattack, but Camoranesi changed Totti, so that Cassano would move to the left and echo Camoranesi left and right.
The Watergate incident in the first match of the European Cup group stage seems to have had a serious impact on the competitive state of the King of Rome. Although Totti’s ball and organization are still remarkable in this game, it is still far from the amazing state he showed in Rome last season, especially his desire to score dropped so much in the game that it is almost impossible to see Totti take the initiative to attack with the ball. Most of the time, it is for Milito and Cassano in front to finish the attack.
Therefore, in this situation, Camoranesi is more suitable to appear on the court than Totti. After all, for Italy now, it is enough for Pirlo to organize the field. What they lack is Camoranesi, a player who can pull the other team’s defense line in the counterattack and create an attack for his teammates.
Trapattoni’s substitution soon paid off. In the 79th minute of the game, Figo’s ball to pauleta was intercepted by Materazzi midway. After Pirlo received the ball, he immediately plugged it straight in front of Milito, who turned around in andrade and divided the ball into Camorasi’s foot from the right!
The Juventus flying wing took the ball to running all the way and broke into the restricted area after his offside success. After attracting the attention of Portuguese players and forcing Ricardo to attack, he suddenly knocked the ball across the middle of the road to follow Milito’s goal.
A match! Italy led the host Portugal by one goal in this semifinal!
Chapter 1271 Equalization
After scoring his fifth goal in the European Cup and tied with Czech striker Baroche at the top of the scorer list, diego milito naturally smiled. Florence striker and Camorasi, who sent this assist, joined hands on the sidelines to celebrate this goal in front of Italian fans. After all, it is hopeful for a striker to win the Golden Boot in an international competition of this level in the European Cup. This is indeed a very celebratory thing.
What’s more, Milito’s goal also helped Italy break the deadlock between the two sides and let Apennines take the lead in the score. Needless to say, it is of great significance, so it is not surprising that Milito will be so excited after the goal.
However, the good times didn’t last long. Only five minutes after Milito scored a goal to break the deadlock in Italy, Portugal relied on Cristiano Ronaldo’s header in the penalty area to equalise the score and bring the two teams back to the same starting line!
Cristiano Ronaldo forcibly broke through on the left and was defended by him. panucci succeeded in destroying the ball except for the baseline penalty corner kick. Costa swam the ball in the center of the restricted area at the back of the goal. Cristiano Ronaldo took an arrow to defend himself. After Materazzi, he tossed his head five meters away from the goal and scored!
After seeing the referee signal that the goal was effective, Cristiano Ronaldo roared all the way to the sidelines and ran for dozens of meters until he was rushed behind him to celebrate the goal. Figo and other teammates threw themselves on the ground and played the pyramid, which finally stopped.
At this time, all Portuguese players rushed to the team like crazy to score a goal to equalize the score. Maybe some of them were still dissatisfied with Cristiano Ronaldo’s main position. They thought that this little guy under 20 years old was honored to play for Florence, a top club. After this goal, everyone had to admit that this young man, who was called Ronaldinho by most media and fans, did not deserve the name Ronaldo!
Well, although he and Ronaldo and Ronaldinho, two predecessors who became famous earlier and more famous, have no relatives, this does not prevent the media and fans from grouping them into one category …
When did this kid practice this? Watching Cristiano Ronaldo and his teammates celebrate crazily on the sidelines, I couldn’t help but smile bitterly. It seems that I really underestimated this little guy’s scoring ability. Maybe Florence will have several top scorers at the same time in time.
Having said that, Starr can also see that although Cristiano Ronaldo has the potential to score a top goal, he is only 19 years old. The Portuguese teenager is not yet mature in many aspects, such as grasping the timing of technical dribbling and reading the competition ability. These are all precipitated when needed, and the most important thing is that Cristiano Ronaldo’s physical fitness at the age of 19 is far less abnormal than that at the peak of his previous life, especially in confrontation ability, which leads to his difficulty in completing technical moves against defenders even if he can judge the ball’s landing point. He is often successfully prevented by the other side because of physical losses.
Of course, if the mature Italian player Ronaldo wanted to defend him in this way in his previous life, it would obviously be impossible, because it was difficult for Ronaldo to fall into the wind in physical confrontation at that time, and his outstanding foot skills and firstclass moving speed made this defender almost a very difficult thing.
Whether Ronaldo will grow into the shooting machine in previous lives depends on what the new coach of Florence, Mourinho, thinks. After all, even if vieri is old, Florence is not short of excellent scorers. In this case, it is really unknown whether Ronaldo will become a past life when he was at Manchester United and Real Madrid.
Therefore, although Ronaldo’s header helped Portugal equalize the score and successfully saved the host’s fate, he tried to repeat the same trick in the next time. However, the Italian player’s targeted defense strategy kept hitting a wall, and panucci and others took little care of the Portuguese teenager, so it was difficult to even receive the ball, let alone grab a shot.
After all, although the score was tied by Cristiano Ronaldo’s unexpected header, Italian players would not fall into the same pit twice. Before the game resumed, they quickly came up with a good way to defend Cristiano Ronaldo and achieved quite good results.
Compared with Portugal, which was once again in trouble on the offensive end because of the opponent’s increased vigilance, Italy still had a chance to take the lead again. Before the end of the game, Pirlo’s midfielder instigated the attack and received the ball. Cassano broke through Miguel and Ma Niqie’s defense on the left and suddenly volleyed near the baseline!
If Ricardo hadn’t saved Portugal’s life with his quick reaction and his height of 1.9 meters and wingspan advantage, I’m afraid there would be another great goal in the European Cup after 16 years.
In this way, when the 90minute regular game ended and the stadium was tied 11, the two teams had to decide the winner again in the next overtime. Of course, if the two sides still failed to decide the winner after 30 minutes, they would face a cruel penalty shootout.
Perhaps the Portuguese are more willing to drag the game to the penalty shootout. After all, they eliminated the powerful England main goalkeeper Ricardo in the quarterfinal, and his ability and psychological quality were fully proved. Italy is quite bitter for the penalty shootout. The Azzurri have fallen to the 12yard mark many times in history, such as the 1994 World Cup final against Brazil and the semifinal in Argentina in nine years. Belgium beat them in the European Cup, and they were even less good at taking penalties. The Netherlands finally saved some face for its poor penalty record. I’m afraid Italy will still compete with the Orange Legion for the title of the team that can’t take penalties.
Chapter 1272 Penalty shootout ()
Because of the defects of the golden ball system, this sudden death method is really unfair to the losing side objectively, so in the European Cup, UEFA adopted a relatively more reasonable silver ball system to replace the controversial golden ball system and should come to overtime.
In Zhuang Ge’s view, the golden ball system will be abolished only ten years after its birth, largely because the farce of the KoreaJapan World Cup left a negative impression on the fans, especially the defending champion Italy, who was eliminated by a golden ball in the final, which made many fans feel unacceptable.
Therefore, FIFA must take some actions, such as canceling the golden ball system and changing the more reasonable system to divert fans’ attention from those controversial matches.