What is happeing with Ricardo, a former goalkeeper of the Portuguese national team? Well, he is not with Selecção in South Africa of course, but he is writting articles for Maisfutebol page.
Some excerpts of the newest text. He writes about upcoming match with Spain and comments also about referees case.
“We are not afraid of Spain”, said Simão and he was right. We have no fear. The Spanish team is not as strong as it used to be. However, we have to pay them the respect. Those who underestimate the opponent can easily lose.
I think that in the first few minutes the game will to be a bit monotonous, unless some goals are scored. Portugal will try to not let Spaniards control the ball, which they love to do. But after the first 15-20 minutes the game will become faster and I believe it’s going to be a great show.
Spanish has a great offensive power and the defensive is even better. However, we have a lot of individual strength which may turn out to be our advantage.
In our team every players is supposed to support the others. There is a place of individuals but not for individualism. They are 11 players on the field.
There must be some aggression aimed in the right direction. You can’t be too cautious, because now it means the team will be eliminated. (...)
Some of our players play in Spain, so keeping in touch with Spanish colleagues is normal. Friendship exists before and after games but during the match there is no friendship. (...)
In the knockout stage there is a possibility of overtime and then going to the penalties. It’s normal that the coach tests players to check who feels more comfortable under such pressure. All responsibility is when it come to it in the game. Mark of defend a penalty is not easy. You must be very cold blooded.
No matter if the match is going to last 90 or 120 minutes or if there are going to be penalties, the most important is to have humility and respect, which helps win and make a good show. In the end I hope we are going to be the winners of course!
The 17th day of the World Cup and everyone is talking about the refereeing... in the two games of the day. We have witnessed huge errors which may have change the course of the event. Lampard’s goal which was disallowed and Tevez’s, which was scored from an offside. However, in that second case don’t blame the referee, because the assistant had a better view on the situation and should notice this.
Original article (Portuguese) can be found here.
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