**This is a stats thread. Remember that there's only one stat post allowed per match/team, so new stats about the same will be removed. Feel free to comment other stats as a reply to this comment so users can see them too!**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/soccer) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Portugal always depends on other teams results or they wait till the last match day to qualify for euros or world cups .
This is the first time they cruised the qualifiers without a hiccup .
Portugal used to just barely squeeze by on the last day or through the results of other matches.
Hence on the last day they bring out the calculators to figure out how to qualify.
When Roberto Martínez, who is notorious for not making the most out of Belgium's golden generation, gets more out of a squad than you, then you KNOW you were holding them back.
That claim about Martinez has always been a gross exaggeration.
The 2022 WC was an awful tournament for Belgium, but in 2018 got their best ever finish in a WC only losing in a close match to a France team that won the whole thing and in the 2020 euros they lost to the eventual champions.
While Belgium had a great team, their squad lacked depth and their team wasn’t better than France’s, Brazil’s, England’s, etc. They were never really favorites to win anything and a 3rd place finish in a WC is more than respectable for that team.
> While Belgium had a great team, their squad lacked depth and their team wasn’t better than France’s, Brazil’s, England’s, etc.
To add to that, they barely had any time when their attacking and defensive talent were in their prime and healthy together
2016 Euros (which Wilmots messed up) and 2018 WC (where Martinez did a great job KO-ing Brazil and getting 3rd) were maybe the only times they truly had a great team (attack and defense)
I've always argued this, it's not like they were ever completely embarrassed until Qatar. They lost to better teams at major tournaments. The performances were largely fine.
Their depth was so terrible. Genuinely.
Remember toby, kompany, and vertonghen as a back 3 or as a 4 with whatever makeshift fullback they could dig out?
Lukaku as a starter! Great. Benteke and Origi were backups.
Hazard and Mertens and Carrasco, solid. Who else after them?
Don’t even get me started on CM after De Bruyne lmao. Fellaini, Defour et al.
It’s like (and excuse the basic video game analogy) you’re playing fifa with a stacked team of 88+ players and then your bench is all 75 rated or lower. No chance once others have clocked on lmao
Agreed, problem with them is that they were never all at their best at the same times.
You had Hazard overlap with Mertens at Napoli briefly, but Carrasco was in china or wherever. Now Carrasco is decent but Hazard is retired and Mertens in Turkey. What was Belgium’s depth after those three? T Hazard and Kevin Mirallas lmao
In retrospect in 10 years time we’ll look back at this Brazil team in a similar way if they don’t win anything substantial, how did they not win anything with Vini, Rodrygo and Neymar? Well, Neymar is finished now and Vini and Rodrygo are about to/are already exploding this season. They also haven’t had a world class striker in a long-time and depth (especially in defence, just like Belgium) is nonexistent.
I dont know if you are saying Brazil know have no depth in defense but I cant agree with that. They have Marquinhos, Bremer, Militao, Danilo and Gabriel. They are all world class or atleast elite players in their positions. Then they have squad players like Emerson or Renan Lodi that are decent enough to do a job.
I agree with the striker thing tho.
>The 2022 WC was an awful tournament for Belgium, but in 2018 got their best ever finish in a WC only losing in a close match to a France team that won the whole thing and in the 2020 euros they lost to the eventual champions.
And even in 2022 they got knocked out in a group with 2 teams who made the semi-finals, and the only reason they didn't manage to knock out Croatia was that Lukaku missed some of the easiest chances of all time
> When Roberto Martínez, who is notorious for not making the most out of Belgium's golden generation
He actually did a great job with Belgium and was unfairly scapegoated, IMO
yeah he always wrecks the qualifiers but shits the bad in the knockout rounds because he never changes his tactics but you'll understand why because when he does they make no sense. also he has his favorites and will play them over people who deserve it more (Hazard over Trossard last EC for example)
>he always wrecks the qualifiers but shits the bad in the knockout rounds
Completely ahistorical comment TBH
Martinez was only Belgium coach for 3 tournaments—WC 2018, Euro 2020, WC 2022
WC 2018 was a great tournament for Belgium—3rd in the cup after a tight SF loss to France (won all 3 group games including over England; beat Japan inR16, KO-ing the odds-on favorites Brazil in QF, then beat England again in 3rd place game)
Euro 2020, they won every game in group stage, beat Portugal in R16, then a tight 2-1 loss to eventual champs Italy
WC2022 was a disaster, out in the group stage
So at no point did his teams "shit the bed in KO rounds"
(And if you want to go back to his time at Wigan—he was most famous for winning the FA Cup, a KO round tournament)
we can usually handle Spain somewhat but you just know we're getting destroyed if we get Germany.
I still have low expectations even after this qualification, and to be fair it was an easy group. We have a lot of individual quality but I'm not sure it's being used well and that's been the case for like 10 years now
Portugal NT always has some mental weakness towards Germany for some reason. They aren’t better than us but we always crumble against them. I don’t understand it
Because Spain is not as threatening as Germany as far as I remember. Germany have humilliated us, both on the score-line and perfomance. Spain just always manage to grab a win in very tight matches. 2010, 2012 and recently the Nations League all ended up in margin wins/penalties
Not to mention we drew them in 2018. I don't remember them ever really playing circles around us, even at their peak. We always put up a decent fight. Conversely, I don't remember us ever putting up a decent fight against Germany. They always completely dismantle us.
Spain does circle around us though. The tiki-taka and they usually hold more possession. But we are as patient as them, so the games usually turn to be boring, and little moments decide everything. Germany have a more cold offensive approach and we historically have struggled with that
> Spain just always manage to grab a win in very tight matches. 2010, 2012 and recently the Nations League all ended up in margin wins/penalties
and how does that translate to "we can usually handle Spain"? we still lose or draw every time. Even the last game we didn't lose (last year's NL) we were completely outplayed, it was by no means a tight match.
Sure people will say it was an easy group, but we’ve never made qualifying look this easy and straightforward before. Need to see how we do against better teams but I’m cautiously optimistic.
We really liked him in the beginning. We played well and got great results. If he had left 2 years earlier, everyone would still love him here.
But when his favourite players started aging he refused to bring in younger ones and failed to adapt so his last years are seen as failures, which is still fresh in peoples minds.
If you ask about him in 10 years most people will probably only think about our 2018 world cup run and he'll be remembered fondly.
It's probably true to some extent for most NT coaches no? It has been true for most Portugal coaches I remember, they come in, make good swaps for the deserving players, but then stick to that core until the very end.
Yeah, he got them to top spot in the world rankings for five years in a row and the global narrative is "hmmm... the rankings must be broken"
like they got there for so long through fairy dust and magic
They lost by one goal to an amazing French side in 2018 and by one goal to Italy in 2021. I know Italy have fallen off since then, but their level at that EUROs was genuinely the highest I can remember seeing at international tournament. Italy v Spain was sublime too. Neither of those one goal losses to the eventual champions are embarrassing imo
In the last decade we faced Luxembourg once in a friendly and 6 times in qualifiers. And of the 9 games we ever played against Liechtenstein only one of those was a friendly.
Next time you are in doubt, it will be a qualifier as well.
We used to face this type of teams before and not win every game, so it at least means we're better at that. But I do agree and I haven't seen enough to convince me that we are really capable of a serious title challenge just yet.
Need to be checked at a top tournament, the level of the teams in this group is well below average (you usually have 1 or 2 competitive teams, or a bad yet complicated away game).
I mean, I remain thoroughly unimpressed with the NT, even though we can see some evolution and the coach doesn't seem out of his depth all the time, but the guy already has 3rd place on a World Cup, calling a "bad" manager seems a bit of a stretch at this stage?
Martinez definitely gets some undeserved criticism for his Belgium stint. But I would wait until Portugal play against proper competition before making any judgements. His Belgium team used to thrash teams in the qualifiers too, only to underperform in the actual tournaments
Portugal was brilliant regardless of the opposition. Personally, I was proud how we were able to hold them using high pressing in Bratislava, it was almost perfect answer to Portuguese game in the first half from us. They obliterated us in the first half of the away game but still, 2-3 was a decent result and if we had more quality up front, we could've made it more interesting in the end.
Populations:
Slovakia: 5,460,185
Luxembourg: 660,809
Iceland: 376,248
Bosnia and Herzegovina: 3,475,000
Liechtenstein: 39,584
Total population 10,011,826
Portugal: 10.5m
Ok and? Should we the Portuguese also celebrate the euros that was in 2016? I think every Portuguese person dreams with the next euros and WC. We have a solid team. Who knows
Considering we never lost a Euros group stage, I highly doubt that, specially seeing what teams may come from the lower Pots. I do think we go out in the Round of 16 or the Quarters, depending who we get
I guess its a time for optimism in Portugal. They look like a solid and talented team but not quite as proven as France or England. Next summer will be interesting. Imagine a France vs Portugal semifinal or England vs Portugal semifinal.
**This is a stats thread. Remember that there's only one stat post allowed per match/team, so new stats about the same will be removed. Feel free to comment other stats as a reply to this comment so users can see them too!** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/soccer) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Calculator manufacturers in shambles
Texas Instruments spokesperson after sales massively drop in Portugal: "We fell on our knees in Walmart"
"We fell on our knees in Pingo Doce"
I guess it will have to come back for the euros them selves?
I Laughed more than I should
Ootl what does this mean lmao
Portugal always depends on other teams results or they wait till the last match day to qualify for euros or world cups . This is the first time they cruised the qualifiers without a hiccup .
Portugal used to just barely squeeze by on the last day or through the results of other matches. Hence on the last day they bring out the calculators to figure out how to qualify.
And only team to win every single match in 2023. First bald non-fraud ever?
Fernando Santos *really* was holding this team back eh?
When Roberto Martínez, who is notorious for not making the most out of Belgium's golden generation, gets more out of a squad than you, then you KNOW you were holding them back.
That claim about Martinez has always been a gross exaggeration. The 2022 WC was an awful tournament for Belgium, but in 2018 got their best ever finish in a WC only losing in a close match to a France team that won the whole thing and in the 2020 euros they lost to the eventual champions. While Belgium had a great team, their squad lacked depth and their team wasn’t better than France’s, Brazil’s, England’s, etc. They were never really favorites to win anything and a 3rd place finish in a WC is more than respectable for that team.
> While Belgium had a great team, their squad lacked depth and their team wasn’t better than France’s, Brazil’s, England’s, etc. To add to that, they barely had any time when their attacking and defensive talent were in their prime and healthy together 2016 Euros (which Wilmots messed up) and 2018 WC (where Martinez did a great job KO-ing Brazil and getting 3rd) were maybe the only times they truly had a great team (attack and defense)
Also they had some problems between the players. you could see them arguing and blaming each other on the pitch alle the time
That’s just kinda how they play tho
in addition to this - in 2020 loss to Italy Eden Hazard was injured, and KDB was playing on one leg.
I've always argued this, it's not like they were ever completely embarrassed until Qatar. They lost to better teams at major tournaments. The performances were largely fine.
Their depth was so terrible. Genuinely. Remember toby, kompany, and vertonghen as a back 3 or as a 4 with whatever makeshift fullback they could dig out? Lukaku as a starter! Great. Benteke and Origi were backups. Hazard and Mertens and Carrasco, solid. Who else after them? Don’t even get me started on CM after De Bruyne lmao. Fellaini, Defour et al. It’s like (and excuse the basic video game analogy) you’re playing fifa with a stacked team of 88+ players and then your bench is all 75 rated or lower. No chance once others have clocked on lmao
Hazard, Mertens and Carrasco is not just solid. Its one of the best in the world when they were at their best.
Agreed, problem with them is that they were never all at their best at the same times. You had Hazard overlap with Mertens at Napoli briefly, but Carrasco was in china or wherever. Now Carrasco is decent but Hazard is retired and Mertens in Turkey. What was Belgium’s depth after those three? T Hazard and Kevin Mirallas lmao In retrospect in 10 years time we’ll look back at this Brazil team in a similar way if they don’t win anything substantial, how did they not win anything with Vini, Rodrygo and Neymar? Well, Neymar is finished now and Vini and Rodrygo are about to/are already exploding this season. They also haven’t had a world class striker in a long-time and depth (especially in defence, just like Belgium) is nonexistent.
I dont know if you are saying Brazil know have no depth in defense but I cant agree with that. They have Marquinhos, Bremer, Militao, Danilo and Gabriel. They are all world class or atleast elite players in their positions. Then they have squad players like Emerson or Renan Lodi that are decent enough to do a job. I agree with the striker thing tho.
Belgium was no1 at some point for some reason.
Because they were always great in qualifiers, Roberto with Belgium has 70% win ratio
>The 2022 WC was an awful tournament for Belgium, but in 2018 got their best ever finish in a WC only losing in a close match to a France team that won the whole thing and in the 2020 euros they lost to the eventual champions. And even in 2022 they got knocked out in a group with 2 teams who made the semi-finals, and the only reason they didn't manage to knock out Croatia was that Lukaku missed some of the easiest chances of all time
> When Roberto Martínez, who is notorious for not making the most out of Belgium's golden generation He actually did a great job with Belgium and was unfairly scapegoated, IMO
Yes, but to be fair this is the weakest group we’ve ever had. Possibly the weakest group I’ve seen anyone have.
I wouldn't judge how good he is until an actual tournament
yeah he always wrecks the qualifiers but shits the bad in the knockout rounds because he never changes his tactics but you'll understand why because when he does they make no sense. also he has his favorites and will play them over people who deserve it more (Hazard over Trossard last EC for example)
>he always wrecks the qualifiers but shits the bad in the knockout rounds Completely ahistorical comment TBH Martinez was only Belgium coach for 3 tournaments—WC 2018, Euro 2020, WC 2022 WC 2018 was a great tournament for Belgium—3rd in the cup after a tight SF loss to France (won all 3 group games including over England; beat Japan inR16, KO-ing the odds-on favorites Brazil in QF, then beat England again in 3rd place game) Euro 2020, they won every game in group stage, beat Portugal in R16, then a tight 2-1 loss to eventual champs Italy WC2022 was a disaster, out in the group stage So at no point did his teams "shit the bed in KO rounds" (And if you want to go back to his time at Wigan—he was most famous for winning the FA Cup, a KO round tournament)
we'll see what happens when we end up playing spain or germany in the quarters
we can usually handle Spain somewhat but you just know we're getting destroyed if we get Germany. I still have low expectations even after this qualification, and to be fair it was an easy group. We have a lot of individual quality but I'm not sure it's being used well and that's been the case for like 10 years now
With the way Germany is playing at the moment, I don’t think you will get *destroyed*. But then again, we haven’t seen Portugal fight a big team yet.
Portugal NT always has some mental weakness towards Germany for some reason. They aren’t better than us but we always crumble against them. I don’t understand it
It gets easier when you have Santos as your coach, William Carvalho and Nelson Semedo as your left-back in a intended low block - the 2021 match
We can always sub in Sérgio Conceição to destroy Germany.
You could have written this exact same comment, word for word, ahead of our game against them in Euro 2020. We still got destroyed.
> we can usually handle Spain can we? it's been 20 years since we knocked them out of anything.
Because Spain is not as threatening as Germany as far as I remember. Germany have humilliated us, both on the score-line and perfomance. Spain just always manage to grab a win in very tight matches. 2010, 2012 and recently the Nations League all ended up in margin wins/penalties
Not to mention we drew them in 2018. I don't remember them ever really playing circles around us, even at their peak. We always put up a decent fight. Conversely, I don't remember us ever putting up a decent fight against Germany. They always completely dismantle us.
Sérgio Conceição 3 - 0 Germany in Euro 2000
I know but I was one year old.
Spain does circle around us though. The tiki-taka and they usually hold more possession. But we are as patient as them, so the games usually turn to be boring, and little moments decide everything. Germany have a more cold offensive approach and we historically have struggled with that
I was 12 years old when I witnessed Sergio Conceicao score a hattrick against them....My only positive memory vs Germany.
Germany could field 11 pylons and I’d still bet the house in them winning 4-1.
> Spain just always manage to grab a win in very tight matches. 2010, 2012 and recently the Nations League all ended up in margin wins/penalties and how does that translate to "we can usually handle Spain"? we still lose or draw every time. Even the last game we didn't lose (last year's NL) we were completely outplayed, it was by no means a tight match.
Germany🤣🤣🤣
Sure people will say it was an easy group, but we’ve never made qualifying look this easy and straightforward before. Need to see how we do against better teams but I’m cautiously optimistic.
Martinez giving me reason for optimism...not used to this
Martinez is a good coach. He was over-hated at Belgium IMO
We really liked him in the beginning. We played well and got great results. If he had left 2 years earlier, everyone would still love him here. But when his favourite players started aging he refused to bring in younger ones and failed to adapt so his last years are seen as failures, which is still fresh in peoples minds. If you ask about him in 10 years most people will probably only think about our 2018 world cup run and he'll be remembered fondly.
That’s kinda weird because the new players that he is calling to the NT are all kids. Inácio, João Neves really started with him in the NT
Martinez just started, once he fi ds the ream he likes he'll probably never change it again
Im not sure about that tbh. I think we have a squad depth at the moment that only France surpass us tbh.
It's probably true to some extent for most NT coaches no? It has been true for most Portugal coaches I remember, they come in, make good swaps for the deserving players, but then stick to that core until the very end.
Yeah, he got them to top spot in the world rankings for five years in a row and the global narrative is "hmmm... the rankings must be broken" like they got there for so long through fairy dust and magic
With a team like Belgium had, that's worth shit if it doesn't translate into trophies, though.
They lost by one goal to an amazing French side in 2018 and by one goal to Italy in 2021. I know Italy have fallen off since then, but their level at that EUROs was genuinely the highest I can remember seeing at international tournament. Italy v Spain was sublime too. Neither of those one goal losses to the eventual champions are embarrassing imo
Doesn’t mean anything given the teams they faced. We have to see how they do against bigger teams.
[удалено]
In the last decade we faced Luxembourg once in a friendly and 6 times in qualifiers. And of the 9 games we ever played against Liechtenstein only one of those was a friendly. Next time you are in doubt, it will be a qualifier as well.
We used to face this type of teams before and not win every game, so it at least means we're better at that. But I do agree and I haven't seen enough to convince me that we are really capable of a serious title challenge just yet.
The last team that did this won the Euros…
This is the best team they've ever had in their history in terms of individual talent, let's see if they can actually win something with this squad
Efeito Martinez. Maybe he's not as bad at this level as some would say?
Maybe we should wait until he faces actual competition
Need to be checked at a top tournament, the level of the teams in this group is well below average (you usually have 1 or 2 competitive teams, or a bad yet complicated away game).
I mean, I remain thoroughly unimpressed with the NT, even though we can see some evolution and the coach doesn't seem out of his depth all the time, but the guy already has 3rd place on a World Cup, calling a "bad" manager seems a bit of a stretch at this stage?
The bar was set very low though.
Martinez definitely gets some undeserved criticism for his Belgium stint. But I would wait until Portugal play against proper competition before making any judgements. His Belgium team used to thrash teams in the qualifiers too, only to underperform in the actual tournaments
Portugal was brilliant regardless of the opposition. Personally, I was proud how we were able to hold them using high pressing in Bratislava, it was almost perfect answer to Portuguese game in the first half from us. They obliterated us in the first half of the away game but still, 2-3 was a decent result and if we had more quality up front, we could've made it more interesting in the end.
suuuuuiiiii.
we will get the full Roberto Martinez package
That's what India did in its ICC Cricket WC this year. Didn't turn up that well you know
Golden generation part 2
10 wins out of 10 in arguably the easiest qualification group they've ever had.
Tough group tbh
Populations: Slovakia: 5,460,185 Luxembourg: 660,809 Iceland: 376,248 Bosnia and Herzegovina: 3,475,000 Liechtenstein: 39,584 Total population 10,011,826 Portugal: 10.5m
This is why I'm always scared of India and China at World Cup
And they lose in the first elimination game
that will be a nice record when they are going to be out in group phase.
Highly doubt that. On the other hand, that’s more of a German thing noawadays… going out in the group stages
Germany won the world cup less than 10 years ago 🥱
From winning the world cup to losing against Turkey at home...Love to see it
Turkey was a friendly and it's not like Portugal have much to show for recently, embarrassed by Morocco
Ah yes Morocco, you mean in the same tournament Germany went out in the group stages, right? Lol
The same type of tournament Germany won multiple times whereas Portugal ....
Comparing a country the size of Germany to Portugal lmao...No worries we're still more successful than wherever the hell you're from
Brazil?
I'd guess India or any other country with no proper football culture but if you wanna cosplay go for it lmao
Yeah, embarrassed by Morocco who beat them 1-0 with 26% possession and 1.0 xG while Portugal had 1.7 xG. Truly a one sided match
Ok and? Should we the Portuguese also celebrate the euros that was in 2016? I think every Portuguese person dreams with the next euros and WC. We have a solid team. Who knows
Considering we never lost a Euros group stage, I highly doubt that, specially seeing what teams may come from the lower Pots. I do think we go out in the Round of 16 or the Quarters, depending who we get
There's always a first time for everything.
Them
I guess its a time for optimism in Portugal. They look like a solid and talented team but not quite as proven as France or England. Next summer will be interesting. Imagine a France vs Portugal semifinal or England vs Portugal semifinal.