Portugal faced France in the Euro 2024 quarter-finals. Roberto Martinez’s side played against a tough French side. It wasn’t a game the Portuguese expected to be a cakewalk. Coupled with the fact that Portugal had been fairly good throughout the tournament.
Roberto Martinez’s expectations from his side were an upgrade in terms of overall performance.
Roberto Martinez also set up the same lineup he had been using in important games. He arranged a midfield trio of Pahlinha, Vitinha, and Bruno Fernandes. His frontline was stacked with Cristiano Ronaldo, Raphael Leao, and Bernardo Silva.
France also anticipated a tough challenge from Portugal. Didier Deschamps had also arranged a front 3 of Mbappe, Griezmann, and Kolo Muani. He put out a midfield of Tchouameni, Kante, and Camavinga.
The game panned out intense, as both couldn’t settle this score in the normal 90 minutes.
Portugal bows to France: First Half
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Portugal started the game with a lot of intensity. Pinning back the French side to their half. Portugal took possession of the ball for long. However, they couldn’t find the back of the net easily. France showed some levels of Organization in the back line.
On the break France was also dangerous however they failed in the aspect of the final pass. Mbappe struggled as he was marked on every front.
Opportunities came for Raphael Leao, but he failed to convert. After a lengthy spell of possession for Portugal, France took the wheel.
Chances fell in for Griezmann but the Atletico Madrid star looked to fall out of form. The first half ended with both teams struggling to create enough scoring chances. Portugal had the most dominance and possession of the game.
However, they just didn’t have the right pass connection which made them seem blunt. France who saw a lot of counters also failed to connect well with the ball to punish the Portuguese.
Second half and Extra Time
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The 2nd half wasn’t much different as Portugal still took charge in the aspect of possession. However, they weren’t creating enough scoring chances. The pressure kept increasing from both ends
Kolo Muani could have taken the lead, after encountering a beautiful one on one. The 25-year-old fires a one-time shot at Diogo Costa, which almost beaten the Portuguese Keeper, but it went wide.
France continued to lie and wait for a counter. Soon Bruno Fernandes came across a beautiful opportunity. He found himself in strides of a fine pass. The Manchester United midfielder fires a sublime shot but Maignan denies it with a fine save
As the time elapsed both teams struggled to find a goal till the 90 minutes got exhausted.
In the Extra Time, it was a similar story. However, the possession was not skewed towards as Fatigue began to set in for Portugal players. The Extra time ended and it was time for Penalty Shootout to be the deciders.
Penalty shootouts were also intense, as both teams were scoring. But the difference came when Joao Felix rattled the bar instead of the goal.
The miss from Joao Felix proved to be the only difference from both teams, as France won 5-4 over Portugal.
Man of the Match
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The Portugal-France game was a heavy tussle. Which didn’t give room for much exceptional display. However, one distinct display was from Theo Hernandez. The AC Milan left-back was all over the pitch in the game.
He held his own on his wing and caused a lot of issues for any attack going through at Portugal’s right-hand side. Going forward also Theo Hernandez was extremely influential. Kylian Mbappe had a fairly good game. Moreover, Theo Hernandez had made his work easy for him.
The AC Milan star had his runs, passes and recovery perfectly timed all through the game. He was able to cause Portugal a great deal of issues offensively and defensively. He capped his fantastic performance up by scoring the winning penalty for France.
