The Portuguese soccer coach, Fernando Santos, tends to be conservative in the initial options for the second game in the final stages of the major competitions, changing little, or nothing, in relation to the debut matches.
If he continues with what he did in Euro 2016, in the 2018 World Cup and in Euro 2020, the coach will have to use against Uruguay, on the second day of Group H of the World Cup, an ‘eleven’ almost the same as the one he started the game with. Ghana, on Thursday, in the debut in the competition (victory 3-2).
This is due to the fact that, in the final three stages of the major competitions in which he led Portugal, Fernando Santos made no more than a change from the first to the second game, although, as is well known, the coaches’ choices take into account to the rival they face, but also possible physical or disciplinary limitations of the players.
In the first final phase in front of the ‘quinas’, in the 2016 Euro Cup, with such good memories for the Portuguese, the coach changed a ‘piece’ of the game with Iceland (1-1) for the duel with Austria (0 -0), taking out João Mário, starter with the Nordics, and throwing Ricardo Quaresma, against the Austrians.
Two years later, at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, precisely the same thing happened between the match against Spain (3-3) and the match against Morocco (1-0 victory), curiously with João Mário again in the ‘equation’, but this time taking the place of Bruno Fernandes, who had initially sided with the Spanish.
In the last competition, Euro2020, played last year, Fernando Santos did not even make any changes, using the same starting eleven in his debut, with Hungary (3-0 win), and in the round of 16, against Germany (4-2 defeat). ).
In this particular, the conservatism of the Portuguese coach, who has led the team since 2014, is further reinforced if we go back to the time when he led Greece, and in the 2014 World Cup he changed two players. between the defeat against Colombia (0-3) in his debut and the victory against Japan (1-0), sending Fetfatzidis and Mitroglou to replace Salpingidis and Gekas.
The exception arose a decade ago, precisely in the first final phase in which he participated, Euro2012, also with the Greeks, in which he changed four ‘pieces’ from the draw with Poland (1-1) to the defeat with the Czech . Republic (1-2): Avraam Papadopoulos, Sokratis (sent off against the Czechs), Ninis and Gekas gave way to Kyriakos Papadopoulos, Fotakis, Salpingidis and Fortounis.
Portugal and Uruguay will play on Monday, starting at 10:00 p.m. local time (7:00 p.m. in Lisbon), at the Estádio de Lusail, in the second day of Group H of the 2022 World Cup.
The World Championship runs until December 18 in Qatar.
Source: TSF
