Pre-Match Analysis
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It's win or go home for San Marino as they face Portugal in the final day of Group F. Portugal stand at 5th place in FIFA Rankings, and despite being arguably the best team in this group they still need a win to clinch 2nd place and a spot in the quarter finals. They look like an excellent team, with a good mix of veterans and young stars and great overall quality (they left home good old Cristiano Ronaldo though). Paulo Bento's Portugal play a narrow 4-1-2-1-2 aiming to control tempo and ball possession with all their technically gifted players. This is going to be an extremely tough match for SM, well at least we shouldn't get raped by wingers and wide players this time...
The Game
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Ouch, Portugal sent us back to 2014 with this one as they simply played us off the park in a heavy
0-3 loss. And it could have been much worse without a good performance of GK Carlo Vignoli (who even saved a penalty). Portugal had 30+ shots and their star striker Nélson Oliveira was everywhere, while San Marino once again failed to create real chances during the match. Not much to say really, Portugal enjoyed total domination for 90 minutes while we probably displayed our worst performance in the last 4-5 years.
Group F Standings
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World Cup winners Belarus continue to impress at international stage claiming top spot in a very competitive Group F, while Portugal nail 2nd place and also qualify to quarter finals. San Marino terminate their EURO experience at last place with 0 points and 0 goals scored in three matches. Not the ideal debut in a major international tournament, though honestly we already did a miracle just to get there.
It's pretty clear that we do lack quality when it comes to create and finish scoring chances: striker Manel Di Marco was great in the EURO qualifying round but struggled a lot against tougher competition here in Belgium, while we simply lack any kind of half-decent playmaker with the lone exception of Fabio Scarano. Ill-timed injuries to key defenders Luca Tagliani and Pier Sposito made things even tougher for SM.
At the end of the day the key for any further improvement is always the same: how long before the infamous Defectors embrace SM and make themselves available for our NT? I like to think that with only 4-5 of those traitors (a couple of attackers, 2-3 midfielders) we could have fought for 2nd place in this group, and certainly wouldn't have finished with 0 goals in the tournament.
Just a little patience, yeah...
[video=youtube;ErvgV4P6Fzc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErvgV4P6Fzc[/video]