Portugal – World Cup Preview

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Currently ranked third in the world by FIFA, Portugal have considerable pressure on their shoulders going into the World Cup this year. And for a team that has never finished higher than third place in the competition they seem to require that little bit extra in order to do better.

In their coach Carlos Queiroz they have the former long term assistant manager to Alex Ferguson at Manchester Utd, this is his second term in charge. Unfortunately question marks have been raised over his appointment and as to whether he has the leadership qualities of an international manager.

Qualification for Portugal rested on a play-off tie with Bosnia and Herzegovina as results against Denmark and Estonia didn’t go to plan. However after a late run of successive victories Portugal scraped into second place.

The Navigators are a much lauded team and expectations are quietly ever increasing despite this poor run up. Portugal has a strong lineage of excellent footballers through Eusebio, Figo and now Christiano Ronaldo.

At the back Ricardo Carvalho is a proven, if sometimes unreliable, central defender and paired alongside Bruno Alves of Porto the partnership forms an imposing blockade. Eduardo is solid between the posts too, should anything breach that defence.

Moving up into midfield and Portugal’s striking force we find the business end of the set up. Players like Deco, Simao and Ronaldo need no introduction whilst Tiago has slowly built up renown at Athletico Madrid. Portugal will be without Nani for the whole of the tournament after he injured his collarbone in training.

This puts even more of a weight on Ronaldo’s shoulders and with Liedson being a probable starter up front, with a record of only 3 goals in 10 games, Ronaldo and company in midfield will have to step up a gear in order to garner more of a threat attack-wise.