Belgium 1-0 Portugal match reaction

I am going to be completely objective here. This is not one of my troll posts. I will always let you know when I am trolling you as I did with Chris. He still has not gotten over that yet.
Objectively,
Portugal is not as dangerous, offensively, as we like to think. Yes, we have offensive weapons, but they are not cohesive as a unit. Most are playing out of position. Some are playing out of position for their clubs, hindering their growth, as in the case with Bernardo Silva. He should really pull a Rui Costa and go to a good but not great club, where he can shine as a number ten. Others are either too raw or too cooked as in the case with Ronaldo. He is cooked. Yes, he scored five goals, but three of them from the penalty spot, and one against a dejected Hungarian side that had already quit. He looked old out there.
Portugal needs to play more modern football. We need a coach that will implement a three-four-three formation. We have great wingbacks when they're not tearing ACLs and contracting "covid" wink wink. Even Guerrero would benefit from this or better yet Mendes. This play four in the back just is not working. It encourages the defensive mentality that all too often leads to goals conceded. Belgium knew what we were going to do, cross into the middle and hope for someone to be on the other end of it. They just simply packed the middle. That is why we did not score. Luck had nothing to do with it. Belgium knew our game plan. The whole world knows our game plan. That is why we do not win. Now, Cancelo's crosses are otherworldly, and he can score. I like Dalot a lot after this game, but losing Cancelo hurt much more than anyone was willing to give it credit.
Ronaldo should either come off the bench for now on or be limited to forty-five minutes. We need a coach with the balls to tell him no. Santos is not it. He is not going to change to a three-four-three. He needs to go.

Santos is a genius coach, I will always be thankful and admire him. He realized Portugal needed to build a solid defense in order to win. And he delivered 2 trophies, the last Euro against all odds. But....

Santos has to go. Everyone knows what we are doing and way to predictable. The problem with parking the bus is once you are behind what do you do?

You have to throw everything to try to get back in the game. We couldn't against Germany, got bailed out with a penalty to tie against France, and we couldn't today.

If you see once the first subs were made, Fernandes and Felix, we started to put immediate pressure on Belgium. This should have been at half time. Now Fernandes and Felix aren't at the levels they should be, but, even then they immediately changed the balance of power.

Can you imagine this group of players that are able to use there combined offensive skills as a cohesive unit?

Ok, you might scream, but what about our defense? Do you think Belgium have a better defense? No, so they use what they have, extremely talented offensive, proactive players to keep the other team under pressure and keep pressure off their average defense.

Can anyone here say after seeing the second half performance after the subs that we were the second best team? Now of course we couldn't do anything with our chances....

But what else would we expect, then don't develop that teamwork and chemistry playing attacking soccer. So even though we can have and keep the ball, we don't know how to move to exploit the other team. Is anyone surprised? We only know how to defend and counter.

One shot on Goal, one Goal(Patricio could have done better and once again, Bernardo didn't track back to pick up the winger playing as a full back. How is that for attacking soccer).

Big teams, WE ARE THE BIG TEAM.

Let's quit with this small mentality BS. Belgium has a population of 11.5 million and they aren't a small team. It's Belgium golden generation, our generation actually won gold, twice. Remember the Swiss killed them to make it to the nation's league finals, which we won. By the way, we are able to get great players from Cabo Verde, Guinea, Angola, France and even Brazil, so we have a large talent pool to choose from. And soccer is where are best athletes go, so we have more than enough talent.

The players just need to go to teams that help them develop or at least keep them at the level they were. Players have to stop going for the money to bad situations. Bernardo has disappointed, but of course he would, he has just become Pep's running stooge(and looked tired and out of ideas). He needs to go to some place that need his strengths. Felix, you know the story.

Look at Sanches. It took a while, but now he is back. He is being used for his strengths and now to fit in some coach's box. Andre Silva, final being used for his strengths. I hope Palinha, Pote and Mendes stay another year or more at Sporting, that is where they successful at. It would be a shame to go some place to be misused. Especially Pote, he was terribly mismanaged at the Wolves under 23's. Look at him now.

Never have so many players been at top teams and leagues. And as we see with Fernandes and Dias(Premier league player of the year), going from the Liga straight to England or anywhere else, isn't a jump if you are ready and you go to the right team situation.

So if Dias would have to defer to Stones & Ake or Fernandes would have to play in a fixed DM position, yes they might have crapped out.

I would rather lose being a fierce force, then puds who are afraid of their shadow. Even if you are lucky to win, you get no respect. How is it as champions, we still feel small? That has to change.

We have an exceptional group of young talented players coming up from the under 21's. Let's see if we can forge a new attacking identity, knowing of course tight defense wins championships. Those two concepts are not mutually exclusive.

Maybe Ruben Amorim as new coach? Would he even come? I don't know who else, not NES or Mourinho, both too defensive. I we have to be defensive, then stay with Santos.

It is so incredibly sad - but true and maybe it was inevitable, as the Portuguese NT shows up at the moment: To me, the Team has NO IDENTITY. The chameleon Portugal worked in 2016, when b.t.w. Portugal luckily grabbed the much weaker side of the "way to the final". No Italy, no Spain, no Germany and no France in the way. Portugal is only reactive, not pro-active. And I don't see that to change under Santos. It is NOT his fault, that Bruno and Bernardo underperform in 90% of the matches - to me, the "out of position" is not much of an argument. If it was, then you don't have to line up these guys at all. What I have seen yesterday was a Joao Felix that brought something, that Bruno or Bernardo never did during their NT career - pure creative offensive thread. But I would have subbed Bernardo with Guedes, not with Bruno. Wit Bruno and JF in the center, Renato was forced out to the left flank. Bad decision. I repeat myself, but I really want to see now a turn around. I want to see a back three. And t.b. honest, I would not like to see Bruno or Bernardo in the starting eleven anymore. I prefer to see Renato and Joao Felix together, doing real damage to the opposition.

I cannot count how many times we struck the ball either wide or wayward. Some of them went 90 degrees way up. Never once was I convinced that we would score. Belgians have better finishers than us, the only reason they were quiet was because we didn't let them dictate the tempo. That Thorgan Hazard goal looked like a Free-kick without a wall and a goal keeper. Absolutely no one ran into him maybe we were too far away from him. I think from now on, we should Implement more of a 3-4-3 formation. Imagine Guerreiro and Cancelo in wide roles! Guerreiro is really good at shooting. He almost scored the equalizing goal if it wasn't hit the post. Overall we were below average all throughout the tournament. Only against Hungary did our defence looked good. We conceded 7 goals and scored 7. Lots of homework to do for Santos, if we have any ambition to win the World Cup.