Portuguese Football in English
As expected, last week’s announcement of Portugal’s 23-man squad yielded no surprises.
Even the inclusion of Renato Sanches, which was very likely due to Bernardo Silva’s ill-fated thigh injury, was far from unexpected, given the youngster’s impressive season with Benfica, and his pricey move to Bayern Munich.
Anyone familiar with Portuguese coach, Fernando Santos’ career, knows that the chain-smoking pragmatist is not one for sweeping changes.
As the Portugal players continue to assemble at the brand new state-of-the-art Cidade do Futebol training camp on the outskirts of Lisbon, a unifying message has been constantly repeated in the daily press conferences: “Portugal are not favourites, but we have the ambition to win Euro 2016.”
Coach Fernando Santos has adopted this approach of contained confidence ever since he took over from Paulo Bento in September 2014, and his players have all learned their lines well. Can they put it into practice on the pitch? So far, the indications are good.
Portugal 1-1 Spain (Portugal win on penalties)Hélio Sousa and his team are the toast of the nation tonight as Portugal lifted the Under-17 European Championship in Azerbaijan.
Portugal crowned a brilliant tournament with victory against Iberian rivals Spain, winning the penalty shootout after a hard-fought 1-1 draw over the 80 minutes.
The last time the Seleção won this competition was in 2003 with a side that contained João Moutinho, Vieirinha and Miguel Veloso, and it will be interesting to see if some of the current crop enjoy similar stellar careers.
With only a few more weeks to go until the start of Euro 2016, Portugal have been dealt another bitter blow as Santos did not include Bernardo Silva in his final squad because of injury. But the young Monaco playmaker is not the only one to miss the plane to France because of a physical malady.
Seleção correspondent, Nathan Motz, who will be on location in France this summer for PortuGOAL.net, assesses the impact of injuries to the squad, and discusses them alongside similar losses to key players incurred before other major tournaments.
Portugal 2-0 NetherlandsAbsolutely brilliant. There’s not a lot more you can say about this Portuguese campaign at the under-17 Euro in Azerbaijan.
With the exact same starting line-up that dominated Austria in the quarter-finals, the youngsters took yet another step forward and secured a place in the final after a 2-0 win against the Netherlands.
A goal in each half by José Gomes and Diogo Dalot saw off the Dutch.
