Portugal: The Movie

By: Greg | September 13th, 2007

Today I’m Steven Spielberg, Harvey Weinstein, Tom Hanks, and Cameron Crowe all rolled into one. I have an amazing eye for film, can produce it, write it, and act it. I’m the best of the best in every category. My only problem? The movie’s two hours long and I’m awesome for an hour and forty minutes. My ending is weak. I have all the makings of the Best Picture of the Year, but can’t deliver the ending. I just can’t finish.

Ironic as it might seem, Portugal’s matches are turning into microcosmic epitomes of the team. The game is great, like the team, but it is never seen through to the end. Portugal can’t finish up front and they can’t finish off a team in a given match. Put simply, they don’t have any consistent strikers who can hit the back of the net (and why hasn’t 6′ 3″ monster Hugo Almedia given a fair shot?).

Portugal can barely hit anything lately, as evidenced when Big ~~Empty~~ Phil managed to miss Dragutinović’s face with a punch from about a foot away. This act was simply disgraceful. As of late, we’ve seen too many footballers and people on the pitch overreacting to relatively innocuous incitements (see: Zinedine Zidane). If the team Little Vacuous were putting on the pitch was producing results, perhaps instead of raising his fist to Dragutinović, he would be able to raise his pointer finger and show Dragutinović that Portugal were winning where it counted, on the scoreboard. The great equalizer in any argument on the field of sport is simply to turn and say “Yeah, well my mother may have screwed half of your team, but according to the scoreboard, you still suck.” Perhaps if Zidane were staked to a three goal lead, he could have simply informed Marco Materazzi of his team’s deficit instead of trying to see if he could impale the Italian defender with his head. My point is, rather plainly, that teams who win or are winning don’t lose their cool. Players on these teams rarely act out. If Petite Felipe needs to defend his players on the pitch, then the players themselves need a gut check and to look each other in the eyes and figure out who they can and can’t go to war with when the time comes.

Portugal may have to come to the realization that maybe we peaked with the 2004 Euro and the 2006 World Cup. Maybe the expectations going forward that were generated as a result of those strong showings were ones of false hope. There are four matches left to play, two away and the final two at home. Three of the four final matches are against the bottom three teams in the group. If Portugal continue to draw and play at the current level, we may have to come to terms with one ugly, previously inconceivable fact: Maybe we’re just not that good.

Category: Euro

Tags: Euro

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Portugal: The Movie

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