This is my new series covering the World Cup. I will pick talking points from each gameday to write about. I will most likely write one or two daily posts until the final. Today, I will be talking about the following:
Morocco holding down Spain
Portugal's win big without Cristiano
Morocco holding down Spain
It's not often you see teams from Africa stand toe-to-toe against European giants, and that's exactly what Morocco has been doing since the beginning of the World Cup.
The scary thing about Morocco is that it has the quality of a top team and the abilities of giants, but with the body of an underdog. The reason that's scary for other teams is that it compels other teams to be the initiating ones and as time goes on during a match, more pressure is put on the teams facing Morocco after all who's going to demand Morocco to be the team that attacks? In a knockout stage, where only one match is needed to qualify, such a position is your best friend.
You can see that while watching Morocco and Spain go into penalties, for Spain it was a bad position and now they have to win while the African side was filled with positivity as it was a success even if they failed the penalties resulting in one side going into the penalties not feeling pressure against a side going into the penalties with nothing but pressure.
Spain's penalties record is also abysmal as this is the third official tournament in a row where they're knocked out thanks to a penalties shootout. Spain also got knocked out by Russia in the 2018 World Cup, and by Italy in the 2020 Euro. Penalties are penalties, but I believe that Spain might be the only top side without any penalty specialists in it. Having at least one penalty specialist usually can boost the confidence of others, but Spain had none. I don't think that's a solvable problem nor do I believe Spain should focus on fixing it.
Morocco is definitely not a favourite going forward but they're not behind other teams either, still, no one is expecting much of them at this point which puts them in a good mental place with the sky as the limit but the floor is made of cotton candy.
Also worth noting is that Morocco also seems to have the best defensive midfielder in the World Cup, Amrabat. Hakimi is giving the second-best full-back performance after Dumfries,
Portugal's win big without Cristiano
In the one game where Cristiano gets benched, Portugal wins with ease. Coincidence? A little bit, yes.
As a man who watched Cristiano through the years and saw him make one controversial statement after another then he and his fans use his number of goals and titles to deflect as if one thing cancels the other, I would love nothing more than to take this chance to lay into Ronaldo. But, the fact is, the situation is just a coincidence to a certain extent.
The fact is, Portugal has been improving for a long time now and the quality of their players in their match against Switzerland was merely an indication of how far Portugal has come since Ronaldo came on the scene, which coincides with the time Portugal started their players' revolution.
If you're interested in how Portugal became the top team it has, I wrote an entire series breaking that down. Here they are in order
The fact is Portugal is simply a team filled with talents ranging from very good to world-class. How many teams do you think has the luxury of benching a full-back like Cancelo? Or a midfielder Bernardo Silva? Or a winger like Rafael Leão? Nowadays you can barely even find a top team that lacks Portuguese or at least players that came through Portuguese clubs.
That's a real reason for a team with players so good that they just discovered a striker who's competing for the top scorer spot of the World Cup on his debut match in the knockout stages,to beat any team, especially one with a not so golden generation nearing its end.
The reason there's a certain focus on Cristiano is because Cristiano doesn't have the numbers anymore, making him an easy target. Let's assume Cristiano was benched after scoring a goal in each of the group stage matches, would this have mattered? The fact is, Portugal played different and required a different player up front than Cristiano, and that's the whole case.