«Terrible», Bernardo said, traveling all over Portugal
Portugal goes to the 2022 World Cup qualifying playoff. This means that the risk of failing a major competition for the first time since 2000 has just increased exponentially. And it is good to remember the trip that has brought us here, since that European.
The Netherlands could still be Holland and not the Netherlands, the Golden Generation of their best times, how they wore baggy, how soccer shoes were almost all black and our football was sexy.
The Golden Generation also went down with a crash in the 2002 World Cup group stage. Which makes this episode the biggest sporting disappointment so far.
I know, we lost a European final with a home final against Greece and we still all remember how much it hurt. But the Golden Generation arrived in South Korea in 2002 with a big promise that it didn’t fulfill. In other words, in 2004, a team failed in the last game, in 2002, failed in the first, in the third and didn’t even make it to the fourth…
There was a lot of talk at that time about the preparation for the World Cup. There, too, it was urgent to evolve, not least because Euro 2004 followed. We did a lot well in this European championship. We played great games against Spain, England and Holland. We lacked Greece, but it was the illusion that we were sold as coach and team, between games with the Greeks, that increased our pain. We failed in the final result, but not in the rest.
In 2006, we were already such a highly regarded team that we are forced into the German tournament. Except Holland, who tried to kick us out of the World Cup. What matters is that we responded more or less in the same coin and only in France, our damned France, prevented us from going to the final. The team was received at a party at Jamor, remember?
Between 2008 and 2014 they weren’t brilliant, but a consolidation of Portugal as a European power led us to the semi-finals in 2012. Cristiano Ronaldo’s ambition was to win us games several times during that time.
In between, Portuguese football tried to work in cabinets. Things are done well there too, make no mistake. An introduction of the B teams in the II League was the impetus that an already good formation needed, and in UEFA and FIFA the association gained weight. The excuse of “we are too little” (that’s why) had come to an end.
Portugal counts in the football world and counts even more in the football of countries. It has a choice of players who play for Manchester United, Manchester City, Atlético Madrid, Liverpool, PSG, Roma, among others. Many of them are the best players at these clubs. They are therefore the best of the best.
But it is incredibly inverse to their football ability that they have been practicing when they play together. Individual quality has done more for selection than collective quality. That and the fact that Ronaldo continues to bring us results with goals that he still manages to score.
The game in Dublin on Thursday was too poor and the duel with Serbia “was awful”. Bernardo Silva said so, I travel all over Portugal.
Because there is an expectation about the team’s game that was left unfulfilled. Against Serbia and too often lately. To the point where we are, now, in the possibility of a scenario worse than in 2002: that one of the brightest generations of footballers from one of the most important teams on the planet will not be on the greatest stage on Earth. The world is full of wasted talent. This selection too. And the coach’s silent pause when asked why this talent didn’t play better was illuminating.