Analysis: Is Portugal just a title contender or one of the favorites for Euro2024?

Goals from Bruno Fernandes and Ricardo Horta led Portugal past Iceland, 2-0, in the final qualifying game played on Sunday at Estádio José Alvalade, in Lisbon, and for the first time in history the national team won all their games in the qualifying round for the European Championship.

Portugal’s qualifying numbers were truly historic – 10 games, 10 wins, 36 goals scored and only 2 conceded – and allowed Portugal to become only the eighth team to finish a European Championship qualifying round with all victories, after France (1992 and 2004), Czech Republic (Euro 2000), Germany (Euro 2012), Spain (Euro 2012), England (Euro 2016), Italy (Euro 2020) and Belgium (Euro 2020).

For our younger readers, this success is not surprising. Since the arrival of Cristiano Ronaldo – for many the best footballer of all time – in 2003, Portugal’s presence on the big stages of European and world football has become a habit, and this was the 13th successive qualification for a tournament’s final round.

At 38 years of age, Ronaldo – although he was the top scorer with 10 goals – is no longer the engine of the national team. But he remains the headliner, thanks to the approximately 780 million followers on social media that make him the most followed person around the globe. Argentina’s Lionel Messi, his main rival, has ‘only’ 530 million.

Thus, this team is no longer Cristiano Ronaldo’s team – holder of practically all the goal scoring records, not only at the club level but also at national team level – and has become a team that practically has no weaknesses and fields world-class players in all positions.

In this qualifying stage, Bruno Fernandes was the standout player. The Manchester United captain led the way in minutes, with 843, and assists, with 8. He scored six goals.

Bernardo Silva, perhaps the most versatile player of English champions Manchester City, was also in the spotlight, with 3 goals and 4 assists. And even full-back João Cancelo showed a goal scoring vein, with three goals.

Numbers confirm Portugal’s dominance

Data from Driblab, a well-known soccer data and analysis company, shows that in this qualifying stage the ‘seleção’ completed an average of 614 passes per match, a record only surpassed by Spain's 657. In terms of possession, the average was 68.4%, a figure only exceeded by Switzerland’s 72.7% and Spain’s 73.1%.

Portugal plays with a very high defense, as the team was, on average, 51.7 meters away from their goal, a number only surpassed by England’s 53.2 meters.

That meant that Portugal’s net was very well protected, as the team only conceded two goals, both in the same game, a 3-2 win over Slovakia on 13 October. Portugal was the team with the most ‘clean sheets’, or shutouts, with 9.

The high defensive line allowed Portugal to recover the ball quickly. And once they gained the ball, Portugal was third in most passes completed, 6.9, behind England’s 7.0 and Spain’s 7.8.

Expectations climb

These figures and the domination that the team showed in this qualifying stage, in which the coach used 31 different players, increased the enthusiasm in Portugal. After the title won in 2016, in France, Portugal became a mandatory title contender in any competition that the team enters. Currently at number 6 in the FIFA ranking, Portugal is behind only France (number 2), England (4) and Belgium (5) among European countries. That explains why many believe that the ‘seleção’ should be listed among the favorites.

Sunday night, journalist Pedro Barata, from Portugal’s ‘Tribuna Expresso,’ wrote a column entitled “Portugal, an obvious candidate to win Euro 2024,” in which he listed the history of the national team and how the group has evolved.

Barata explained that “Portugal has selected a consensual group, without the thousand and one internal wars that always seem on the verge of happening, for example, in France and Spain. Portugal has less stifling pressure than teams that have historically place victory in major competitions as an obligation associated with their status, such as Germany or Brazil.”

In addition, this is a very experienced national team, as nine of the players usually called up by Roberto Martínez have more than 50 caps. And the group also has younger players who “have been champions or runners-up of the European Under-17, Under-19 or Under-21 Championships”.

In light of these facts, Pedro Barata considers that “the talk of ‘doing the best possible’ or ‘getting as far as possible’ does not follow reality. The ‘seleção’ is an obvious contender to win Euro 24.”

His conclusion is also based on a comparison with the other contenders.

“Portugal has more of an abundance of talent than Italy or the Netherlands; it has a more stable team, one that has spent more time working together than Germany or Spain; has greater internal stability than France and less pressure and demands than Germany,” Barata wrote.

Portugal’s record campaign avoids the ‘sharks’

The immaculate qualifying record allowed Portugal to be one of the six seeded teams in the draw that is scheduled for Dec. 2 in Hamburg, Germany, the host country for the European Championship.

Thus, Portugal will be in pot 1 of the draw, along with Germany (number 16), Spain (8), Belgium (5), France (2) and England (4).  This way, Portugal avoids the other five big sharks of European football in the group stage, which takes place between June 14 and July 14 of next year.

Pot 2 has: Hungary, Turkey, Romania, Denmark, Albania and Austria.

Pot 3 includes: Netherlands, Scotland, Croatia, Slovenia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

Finally, Pot 4 consists of Italy, Serbia and Switzerland. The other three nations will be determined in the play-offs, to be played by 12 teams, with six semi-finals on March 21, 2024, and the three finals on March 26, 2024, with the three winners in those matches completing the 24-team line-up at the EURO finals.

Players and coaching staff call for restraint

While acknowledging that the team has the quality to compete favorably against any opponent, the players and coaching staff recognize that the opponents in the qualifying round that concluded on Sunday were not strong enough to truly assess the collective quality of this group.

Nuno Gomes, the former Portuguese international who scored the winning goal, 1-0, in the win over Spain that sent the team to the knockout stage of the 2004 Euro played in Portugal, where the ‘selecção’ lost the final to Greece, showed some caution when discussing the label of favorite for Portugal.

“Portugal is one of the candidates to win the next European Championship, as well as others and, among the candidates, I think there are others who are more favored. From Germany, who are the hosts, Italy, the defending champions, France, Spain or England as well. Portugal is one of the contenders, and in over the course of the European Championship, it could become a favorite,” Nuno Gomes said during an interview with the radio program 'Bola Branca'.

“We are candidates like all the teams that will be there. Being favorites doesn't win games,” warned Bruno Fernandes. “It's about getting there, doing our job and thinking game by game. All teams have quality and, nowadays, there are no weaker or much weaker teams. They all have good players, good coaches. You have to realize that it's going to be a very difficult Euro.”

Coach Roberto Martínez, who achieved a perfect qualifying stage campaign for the second time in his career, after leading Belgium to the Euro 2020 finals, had a similar take.

“There are no favorites for Euro 2024,” Martínez said. “There is a group of teams that have the quality needed to win the tournament. We're in that group, but the details will then make a difference.”

For Roberto Martínez, the biggest problem is selecting the 23 players who will go to Germany

Because of the quality of Portuguese players spread all over the globe and playing in some of the best clubs in the world, Roberto Martínez will have a very difficult task ahead of him when it comes to choosing the players to bring to Germany.

Those choices could be affected by possible injuries that may occur between now and then, as has happened with other teams. Young Spanish international Gavi was injured against Georgia on Sunday, suffering a total tear of the cruciate ligaments in his right knee, in addition to an injury to the lateral meniscus. He will miss the Euro2024.

When asked about the difficulty in choosing the squad for the finals, Roberto Martínez acknowledged that he has a difficult task ahead of him.

“It’s very difficult. We have more players with important skills. There are more than 30 players who have shown that,” Martinez replied. “It’s a very difficult period. You have to work a lot, a lot of information, with responsibility.”

Ricardo Horta, who scored the second goal on Sunday, is among the players who is not guaranteed a spot and was sympathetic to Martinez.

“I wouldn’t want to be in the coach’s shoes, we have a lot of quality. There are a lot of players who are not here, and they have a lot of quality,” said the Sporting de Braga striker.

“We have a lot of quality in all areas, this is one of the teams with the most quality that I can remember, and that’s why it gives the coach a lot of headaches,” added Vitinha, a midfielder who plays for Paris St. Germain.

Roberto Martínez can only take 23 players to the Euro. In Sunday’s match, he dressed 23 players, but injuries knocked out others who under normal circumstances would have been chosen in this group, namely Nuno Mendes, from PSG; Pepe, from FC Porto; Rafael Leão, from AC Milan; Diogo Dalot, from Manchester United; Manchester City’s Matheus Nunes; and Wolverhampton’s Pedro Neto.

To try to figure this out, let’s look at the team that started on Sunday: Diogo Costa, João Mário, Rúben Dias, Gonçalo Inácio, João Cancelo, João Palhinha, Bruno Fernandes, Otávio, Vitinha, Bernardo Silva, João Félix and Cristiano Ronaldo.

On the bench were: Rui Patrício, José Sá, Toti Gomes, António Silva, Raphäel Guerreiro, Gonçalo Ramos, João Neves, Ricardo Horta, Bruma, Rúben Neves, Diogo Jota and Vitinha.

These three lists contain 29 names, meaning that six will have to be crossed out. Obviously, injuries that may arise between now and then will have an impact, but there is no doubt that Roberto Martínez has a very difficult task ahead of him.

The warm-up matches in March or April will certainly give us some clues, but until then there will be lots of speculation about the possible choices to be made by the Portuguese coach.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Analysis: Is Portugal now one of the favorites to win Euro2024?