Jéssica Silva’s leveller guaranteed the skirmish of the Group C longshots finished all square as Portugal came back from 2-0 down against Switzerland to take a point.

Following early strikes by Coumba Sow and Rahel Kiwic inside the initial five minutes at Leigh Sports Village, Francisco Neto’s side, who qualified for the finals because of Russia’s removal, hit back through Diana Gomes and Silva to guarantee a 2-2 draw.

• Fernando Santos

There is a lot of talk about the upcoming World Cup in Qatar with a fair amount of it focussing on Portugal star Cristiano Ronaldo given it could be his last major tournament for the Seleção.

The reason that is relevant is that there are big questions about whether or not Fernando Santos is the right manager to lead Portugal in the World Cup. Even if Bovada sportsbook and other popular ones rate Portuguese chances quite high on the WC (at least of getting to the quarter-finals), there is huge scepticism among Portuguese fans.

Here we take a look at the pros and contras of sticking with Santos. 

The Luso descendants who chose Portugal as their home and the Seleção as their love

The Portuguese for many years, through their voyages across the seas, have settled in various places around the globe, so it is no surprise that many football players around the world are Luso-descent. They are children or grandchildren of Portuguese who left their country and organised their lives away from the motherland.

More and more descendants of emigrants are playing for Portugal, at its various levels, and despite some exceptions, the truth is that most of them have no doubts when it comes to choosing whether to play for the national team of the country where they were born or for the country where their parents came from. 

The domestic season drawing to a close has not relegated football from the top of the sports headlines. There’s plenty of international action forthcoming, and we don’t just mean Portugal’s preparations after their perilous progress to the final stages of Qatar 2022. 

Before we focus on the Middle Eastern adventure, the women’s game will take centre stage. Euro 2022 gets underway in the UK at the beginning of July, with 16 teams fighting it out. Portugal’s women qualified by default after the Russian team was excluded, and therefore have nothing to lose and everything to prove. 

Competition format 

The teams have been split into four groups of four. Each will play three group matches against the other teams in the group, with the top two from each advancing to the quarter-finals. Portugal finds itself in Group D, alongside defending champions Netherlands plus Switzerland and Sweden. It’s fair to say that Netherlands and Sweden are favourites to make it through to the quarters, while the soccer odds speak volumes for Portugal’s outsider status.