So the time came for portugal to bid farewell to Euro 2008. In front of over 30,000 screaming fans last night, Portugal lost 2-3 against a superior German team. That is not to say that Portugal were outclassed, in my opinion, but that the Germans were just able to convert their opportunities better than the Portuguese team were.
Germany scored from two excellent set piece free kicks, and a third when Ballack made a lovely cross to Schweinsteiger to push the ball past Ricardo. In contrast, Portugal claimed two goals back, the second in the dying minutes of the game when Postinga converted a cross from Nani to head the ball into the net.
All in all it was an equally matched game, but on the day the German team converted their chances better than Portugal. Personally, I feel that there was some gamesmanship, when Chelsea announced that Scolari was leaving for Chelsea after the tournament, clearly he has more time to pack now. Chelsea should really have kept quiet about this until either Portugal were knocked out, or until the end of the the tournament. This was going to be upsetting news, and put a lot of pressure on both Scolari and the team.
Some will say that Scolari wasn't trying hard enough because he was going to Chelsea, but after the game last night Scolari denied this, saying; "If I hadn't announced I was going to Chelsea, we would still have lost the two games. We lost because we didn't do things right or with more quality. It was nothing to do with Chelsea. Some people will imagine it was, but that's not the case."
The other question is what will Ronaldo do now? Will he be going to Rael, or will he stay at Manchester United? According to him after the game last night, he'll be making a decision in the next few days. Stay tuned.
In other news, there were a couple of events during the match that show the crazy side of football. In Lisbon, a german fan watching the match in a bar was beaten up by Portuguese supporters when he couldn't contain himself after the second German goal. And in Porto after the match, a fifty-something year old man ran through a packed public square with a knife. Two people were taken to hospital with stab wounds.
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