Tekst Saša Ibrulj
When you get in to the journalism school - or at least start working with some older and more experienced colleagues - one of the first things they´ll tell you is to avoid repeating. Nobody wants to read the same things over and over again; people simply get bored.
But, does Fernando Santos care about that? Clearly not, my friends, clearly not. He keeps copying his plan, with minor changes, from match to match, forcing us to write the same things. Neutralising the opposition, sitting deep, having patience, waiting for the chance, breaks, set pieces, boring, boring…
It's not that Portugal is linear as it sounds, it really isn't. Look at their starting eleven against Iceland, look at their gameplan against Iceland and you'll see many differences compared to the Wales match. He changed five starters, the whole concept looks different, but it is so similar to what we've seen in "the important games" - Croatia and Poland - that it frustrates. It's like Santos sat after three group stage matches and thought "Hm, I obviously don't have a team to outplay anyone, I have a shaky defence when under pressure, so I will just kill the game and wait for the final".
However...
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