Portugal V Republic of Ireland - Wednesday, 1st Sep 2021 - 2022 World Cup Qualifier

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

Portugal had 29 shots in that game and only 7 were on target - Portugal have some decent attacking players, so for me that stat alone screams out that centre-back was where to look for man of the match. And a shout-out too to the defensive work being done in midfield.

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I’ll try and have another look at the match tonight, some kind soulorean might upload it somewhere, but if anyone does have it, I’d suggest playing close attention to Josh Cullen’s performance. He was immense, particularly his off the ball work, and was covering an amount of ground in that second half, and he’s clearly a leader for us.

I really feel sorry for Doc too. Best game for us - I wonder is there an element of the pressure being off as he wasn’t being compared to Seamus while Seamus is on the bench? - but he clearly needed to come off with 20 mins to go. That final insane spell of pressure from Portugal I’m pretty sure started when he tried to cushion the ball for Duffy (?) and either there was no communication, or a misunderstanding, but it went out for a corner, where we didn’t touch the ball ina controlled way for a few minutes at least. Don’t recall much pressure in the second half coming down Seamus side either.

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Originally Posted by ifk101

Bazunu was jittery at times but context. 19yo playing Portugal away. You have too much of a hang up here.

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No hang up. 19-year-old away to Portugal is a fair point and I've always said he's a very good prospect.

But that doesn't mean I can't call out a 9.5/MOTM rating and try bring some reality into the discussion.

Agree with Kingdom on Cullen btw.

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Originally Posted by ifk101

Just on Molumby, he had a chaotic, headless five minutes on the pitch - not sure if fresh legs helped there. Options on the bench are limited.

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I’ve no doubt his instructions were to hunt the ball, and let Cullen and Hendrick sit in and protect the central core. Problem was they always had an outball. But it’s a fair point, and as you say, the contrasts between the two benches and what came off them highlights the problems we faced. That he didn’t bring Arter on says a lot.

Looking at Ronaldo's goals again there. I don’t like to say it, but Coleman doesn’t really do much of a job of blocking Ronaldo runs.

Jeez you just can’t let Ronaldo do those runs in the box.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

Those ratings are a bit high to be honest backs!

Connolly was poor; just outclassed. I'd give him a 5. Bazunu - saved the penalty but gave it away too. His fumble nearly cost us, and booting the ball down the pitch after his save in the 94th minute did cost us. It's the last minute of the game; you have to keep possession. Had surprisingly little to do, partly because the centre-backs were great (and they had to be) - and a scoring centre half was the obvious choice for man of the match for me. Idah - had some good touches but found it hard to get into the game. Wasn't for want of trying, but it wasn't a 9 performance.

I think Portugal being so poor has to be acknowledged as a factor - you'd be looking at 5s for them on average, and 7s for us.

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You'd suck the joy out of an orgasm. Yeah some of the ratings were a bit generous and some flaws were overlooked but if you and your ilk want to look at this through your glass-half-empty lenses then I feel sorry for you, really I do.

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Originally Posted by seanfhear

Looking at Ronaldo's goals again there. I don’t like to say it, but Coleman doesn’t really do much of a job of blocking Ronaldo runs.

Jeez you just can’t let Ronaldo do those runs in the box.

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I really really don’t think Coleman can do anything about the run, simply because of Ronaldo’s starting point. And touch on him before the ball comes and the ref will blow a peon. What doesn’t look great is that he’s crouching down as Ronaldo is jumping. Is it Omabamidele in front of him who jumps a little prematurely?

If Connolly could pass, cross or shoot he'd be some player.

Seriously though - I do wonder what he would be like if he got some proper minutes under his belt - he seems like a player with a massive upside. I think saying he was outclassed is not accurate - more like he beats himself. A bit of composure and he surely would have scored. I'd love to see him play again Sat and Tuesday. He needs minutes more than any other player.

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Originally Posted by Real ale Madrid

If Connolly could pass, cross or shoot he'd be some player.

Seriously though - I do wonder what he would be like if he got some proper minutes under his belt - he seems like a player with a massive upside. I think saying he was outclassed is not accurate - more like he beats himself. A bit of composure and he surely would have scored. I'd love to see him play again Sat and Tuesday. He needs minutes more than any other player.

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So accurate. It is like he's still in under 23 mode where he can create 10 chances and score 2 a game and not even need to think about assisting someone else because he'll have done his job getting 2 goals. Serious refinement necessary in terms of composure and decision making and execution.

My dream would be a loan to Derby to play under Rooney for a season.

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Originally Posted by Kingdom

I really really don’t think Coleman can do anything about the run, simply because of Ronaldo’s starting point. And touch on him before the ball comes and the ref will blow a peon. What doesn’t look great is that he’s crouching down as Ronaldo is jumping. Is it Omabamidele in front of him who jumps a little prematurely?

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Coleman has to be making life a lot more difficult for Ronaldo for both of the goals. Just because he is Ronaldo you do not escort / give him free runs. Ideally of course you would have a bigger physical specimen on Ronaldo especial in the box at that point of the game, but that is easier said than done.

Anybody seeing similarities between mcgeady and Connolly? Where the minimum requirement for a midfielder or attacking player is to be an out ball? The Portuguese defenders were social distancing all night.

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Originally Posted by paul_oshea

Anybody seeing similarities between mcgeady and Connolly? Where the minimum requirement for a midfielder or attacking player is to be an out ball? The Portuguese defenders were social distancing all night.

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You’ll need to expand that one there Paulo, for the mentally deficient amongst us (I.e. me!)

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Originally Posted by seanfhear

Looking at Ronaldo's goals again there. I don’t like to say it, but Coleman doesn’t really do much of a job of blocking Ronaldo runs.

Jeez you just can’t let Ronaldo do those runs in the box.

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Of course kingdom defended the goals by Rinaldo's brilliance but you harass him and Harry him before he even gets to make those jumps, I thought Hendrick did very well keeping him quiet.

Ronaldo's movement for the second in particular was brilliant. From just offside to just the right place at just the right time.

https://twitter.com/zaynmaliksprop1/...70897628708869

https://twitter.com/swearimnotpaul/s...927168/photo/1

https://twitter.com/GregFitzgerald1/...455234/photo/1

if this is true, this is an scandal - If it happened down here the ref wouldnt leave the dressing room with our players looking for revenge.

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Originally Posted by paul_oshea

Of course kingdom defended the goals by Rinaldo's brilliance but you harass him and Harry him before he even gets to make those jumps, I thought Hendrick did very well keeping him quiet.

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Ronaldo was taking liberties with freedom of movement there. Not say it’s easy but ya don’t let a fall like Ronaldo have the freedom of the box = = Mind you, that ref would have been trigger penalty happy ! He might even have taken the penalty himself and awarded it to Ronald if he scored !

my question is how the fai is gonna act about it ? it has been a long time since a proper even match got this kind of referee that manages to make all the call in favour of one team, all they went for Portugal. Shocking

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Originally Posted by Bielsa´s irish

my question is how the fai is gonna act about it ? it has been a long time since a proper even match got this kind of referee that manages to make all the call in favour of one team, all they went for Portugal. Shocking

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Was he Ronaldo’s Uncle ?

the var system yesterday was used for just one purpose like yesterday. we were destroyed by refs this campaign

Thought they all did well. In particular Bazunu (bar his woeful pass that led to the penalty), Omabamidele, Doherty, Coleman, Cullen and Idah.
Hendrick did well too I thought and showed he’s capable of still performing for us.
Connolly drove me mad. Took the wrong option nearly every time and if he wasn’t diving at every opportunity he might have been awarded that stonewall penalty.

Ref was shocking

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Originally Posted by paul_oshea

Of course kingdom defended the goals by Rinaldo's brilliance but you harass him and Harry him before he even gets to make those jumps, I thought Hendrick did very well keeping him quiet.

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Ok no problem.
I love defending, more than any part of the game. I know how to defend. The reason you defend the 6yd line is because anything central inside that (in most cases but not in some specific examples) is your keeper has that area.
The longer you camp inside that penalty box as two blocks - first line and second line) the more you become a sitting duck, especially against teams of higher calibre in comparison to our squad current level. If you’re defending in those two lines, you’ve got to move as a unit/line, and you are extremely susceptible to diagonals or arcs between the two lines, which is exactly where their two goals came from.



You’ve actually made a very good point regarding Hendrick, but the context you’re attributing to it, and the comparison with Coleman is simply baffling, for a couple of reasons.
You’re subconsciously saying that Hendrick was marking him well, which Coleman didn’t. Which is of course nonsense. What you’ve done is highlight the freedom of movement that we all know Ronaldo has licendce to do, and what his “heatmap” would look like would make for interesting viewing. What is does illustrate is that it is almost impossible to retain shape and man mark the man. Hendrick of course wasn’t man marking him and keeping him quiet, he was occupying space really well in tandem with Cullen, afforded by the block of 5 behind, and the lack of space between the two ‘blocks’, if you will. Ronaldo gets stood up by Hendrick, he lays off, pushes on and Hendrick can simply let him move inside to be a defenders problem, and continue to occupy space for whichever Portugeezer becomes the creator.

there is a post on this thread that sort of alludes to Coleman stopping Ronaldos runs (plural), and I’m going to the Liberty of understanding that he is somehow mixed up in the first goal - which of course he isn’t.
The first goal is a single movement or phase that is staggered, and it’s primarily Shane Duffy who loses Ronaldo: Duffy follows the movement of the winger while a Ronaldo applies the breaks and is in the space between the two lines. Duffy loses the man and compounds Mcacleans error.
The second goal is pox hard to defend against because of where the first movement breaks down from, and the reversed direction of the second movement - this is accentuated at the moment by the offside rules as they aren’t! If anything, young Andy is as much to blame as Seamus, as he’s caught under the cross and his reaction to the goal I think underlines this.
Again, should Seamus have jumped with Ronaldo? Yes. Does it look bad ? Yes. But I’m not going to hammer him for a moment of exhaustion, having been pulled from pillar to post for the previous 25/35 minutes.I’d much prefer to laud the exceptional movement of an exceptional forward. My first reaction is the cross shouldn’t be coming in in the first place.

The way our defenders like to defend, backs to the wall, in blocks, doesn’t afford a defender the scope to move significantly with an attacker like Ronaldo, and is exhausting, as the discipline must be almost total as you hold your place in the block, which opposition can interchange and move as they please/see fit. Ronaldos heatmap from last night would show exactly the difficulties in this regard.

Once they scored one with significant time left, they were scoring a second.

In international football ALL that matters is the result. Especially in qualifying.

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Originally Posted by Neish

And it was so different under, McCarthy, O'Neil, Trapattoni etc?

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Yeah, they actually qualified for tournaments and never went 14 games, 1 win. Massively different.

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Originally Posted by Real ale Madrid

If Connolly could pass, cross or shoot he'd be some player.

Seriously though - I do wonder what he would be like if he got some proper minutes under his belt - he seems like a player with a massive upside. I think saying he was outclassed is not accurate - more like he beats himself. A bit of composure and he surely would have scored. I'd love to see him play again Sat and Tuesday. He needs minutes more than any other player.

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Agreed. He was frustrating from an Irish point of view but I thought a real nuisance from a Portugal one, constantly putting them on the back foot but his decision making certainly needs to improve. "Outclassed" a ridiculous summation anyway in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by RiffRaff

Lucky Ronaldo scored in the 6th of the minimum of 5 additional minutes otherwise the ref would still be playing injury time now

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Fixed that there for you.

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Originally Posted by Kingdom

You’re subconsciously saying that Hendrick was marking him well, which Coleman didn’t. Which is of course nonsense. What you’ve done is highlight the freedom of movement that we all know Ronaldo has licendce to do, and what his “heatmap” would look like would make for interesting viewing. What is does illustrate is that it is almost impossible to retain shape and man mark the man. Hendrick of course wasn’t man marking him and keeping him quiet, he was occupying space really well in tandem with Cullen, afforded by the block of 5 behind, and the lack of space between the two ‘blocks’, if you will. Ronaldo gets stood up by Hendrick, he lays off, pushes on and Hendrick can simply let him move inside to be a defenders problem, and continue to occupy space for whichever Portugeezer becomes the creator.

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whoscored do heatmaps for internationals - https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/15...rtugal-Ireland

Select "Heatmaps" from the match centre about a third of the way down the page. By default all players are selected, which I find annoying, so click "select all" in both teams to clear it and then select the player you want to see. Ronaldo was all across the middle of the pitch in our half, with slightly more time spent coming in from their left hand side.

I found Hendrick and Cullen's maps to be interesting, both players seem to have covered the whole pitch

(snipped out the less relevant text from the quote - no offence intended)

I think you could write a full dissertation picking holes in individuals’ performances and in the team’s collective failings. We could have been 2 down after 25 mins and God knows what might have happened after that. Bazunu made a couple of nearly costly errors, Connolly fluffed some chances and seemed more intent in buying penalties than actually trying to score, and we failed to hold out from being 1-0 up with only minutes left, making avoidable mistakes. Nobody is blind to this, but it’s football: a classy team of cocksure thoroughbreds up against a team of mainly lower league players or players barely out of nappies in terms of this standard of football, a team totally out of luck and form and expected by most to take a hiding. Of course the better team will have more of the ball and the better chances.

But in the context of what we, or I at least, expected and wanted I thought it was something to behold to be honest. We barely touched the ball in the opening minutes and I feared we were facing an embarrassing defeat. But even before we gifted them the penalty Doherty started to lead by example, showing no fear and no mean ability breaking down the line and drawing fouls. On the other side Coleman put in a masterful shift. We were feeding our front two with increasing ease and they were turning their markers and starting to cause real trouble. We grew into the game by showing courage on the ball – something we’ve been crying out for for literally decades now, and we looked like a normal 21st century football team. O’Shea and Omobamidele looked born to play this level of football, the latter in particular was coolness personified. What a prospect. Cullen was magnificent I thought, a proper midfielder doing what proper midfielders do. McGrath looked confident. Idah showed some real quality and presence. Despite the hairy moments Bazunu delivered at the key times and I think you can tell that there’s great chemistry between him and the senior defenders.

The big takeaway for me from last night was huge satisfaction in seeing a team of mainly homegrown footballers - at least half of whom have only barely started their senior careers - being courageous and technically accomplished on the ball, organised without the ball and a side with pace. It’s what I’ve been wanting from an Irish team for years, and I think Kenny deserves credit.

The late goals hurt but nothing like Paris or Israel or Macedonia or any of them. I had already been realistic enough to think qualifying was a very remote prospect so no expectations were dashed unlike in previous late concessions. Of course the positives will fade away very quickly if we don’t follow up in the next two games.

Considering what he had to do, Hendrick's tackle was inch perfect, the tv replay showed that but VAR bizarrely just showed a 2 second long poor replay angle on a loop. The barge on Connolly was a valid penalty claim, he was hit before he got his foot to the ball and it's irrelevant that Connolly should have struck the ball a fraction earlier.

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Originally Posted by Stuttgart88

You'd suck the joy out of an orgasm. Yeah some of the ratings were a bit generous and some flaws were overlooked but if you and your ilk want to look at this through your glass-half-empty lenses then I feel sorry for you, really I do.

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Kenny's 14 games in, with one win against Andorra. I feel sorry for people like you who see Kenny as progress!!

exactly was a penalty, yesterday was a scandal fai must intervene

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Originally Posted by tetsujin1979

whoscored do heatmaps for internationals - https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/15...rtugal-Ireland

Select "Heatmaps" from the match centre about a third of the way down the page. By default all players are selected, which I find annoying, so click "select all" in both teams to clear it and then select the player you want to see. Ronaldo was all across the middle of the pitch in our half, with slightly more time spent coming in from their left hand side.

I found Hendrick and Cullen's maps to be interesting, both players seem to have covered the whole pitch

(snipped out the less relevant text from the quote - no offence intended)

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Ah Tets, brilliant, thank you for that link. That site is exceptional. No offence taken.
your analysis spot on. almost like the Ronaldo that played with Madrid in terms of movement.

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Originally Posted by Kingdom

Ok no problem.
I love defending, more than any part of the game. I know how to defend. The reason you defend the 6yd line is because anything central inside that (in most cases but not in some specific examples) is your keeper has that area.
The longer you camp inside that penalty box as two blocks - first line and second line) the more you become a sitting duck, especially against teams of higher calibre in comparison to our squad current level. If you’re defending in those two lines, you’ve got to move as a unit/line, and you are extremely susceptible to diagonals or arcs between the two lines, which is exactly where their two goals came from.



You’ve actually made a very good point regarding Hendrick, but the context you’re attributing to it, and the comparison with Coleman is simply baffling, for a couple of reasons.
You’re subconsciously saying that Hendrick was marking him well, which Coleman didn’t. Which is of course nonsense. What you’ve done is highlight the freedom of movement that we all know Ronaldo has licence to do, and what his “heatmap” would look like would make for interesting viewing. What is does illustrate is that it is almost impossible to retain shape and man mark the man. Hendrick of course wasn’t man marking him and keeping him quiet, he was occupying space really well in tandem with Cullen, afforded by the block of 5 behind, and the lack of space between the two ‘blocks’, if you will. Ronaldo gets stood up by Hendrick, he lays off, pushes on and Hendrick can simply let him move inside to be a defenders problem, and continue to occupy space for whichever Portugeezer becomes the creator.

there is a post on this thread that sort of alludes to Coleman stopping Ronaldos runs (plural), and I’m going to the Liberty of understanding that he is somehow mixed up in the first goal - which of course he isn’t.
The first goal is a single movement or phase that is staggered, and it’s primarily Shane Duffy who loses Ronaldo: Duffy follows the movement of the winger while a Ronaldo applies the breaks and is in the space between the two lines. Duffy loses the man and compounds Mcacleans error.
The second goal is pox hard to defend against because of where the first movement breaks down from, and the reversed direction of the second movement - this is accentuated at the moment by the offside rules as they aren’t! If anything, young Andy is as much to blame as Seamus, as he’s caught under the cross and his reaction to the goal I think underlines this.
Again, should Seamus have jumped with Ronaldo? Yes. Does it look bad ? Yes. But I’m not going to hammer him for a moment of exhaustion, having been pulled from pillar to post for the previous 25/35 minutes.I’d much prefer to laud the exceptional movement of an exceptional forward. My first reaction is the cross shouldn’t be coming in in the first place.

The way our defenders like to defend, backs to the wall, in blocks, doesn’t afford a defender the scope to move significantly with an attacker like Ronaldo, and is exhausting, as the discipline must be almost total as you hold your place in the block, which opposition can interchange and move as they please/see fit. Ronaldos heatmap from last night would show exactly the difficulties in this regard.

Once they scored one with significant time left, they were scoring a second.

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It was the same after Wales' Nations League winner against us. We were dissecting who could have prevented the header across goal. Was it the CB's fault or Doherty, or was it the full back for failing to get the cross in or was it a midfielder for failing to stop the initial ball? That Egan eluded his marker for his goal didn't diminish it. Goals happen. Ronaldo just did what world class forwards do - he found space at precisely the right time. For me the real obvious mistake was a tired Hendrick making a tired clearance straight back to the Portuguese guy instead of finding touch. But most of the time he'd get away with it.

All goals are preventable in hindsight. I think we go OTT analysing the goals we concede sometimes. I'm not singling you out, you're only getting sucked into this conversation.

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Originally Posted by weldoninhio

Kenny's 14 games in, with one win against Andorra. I feel sorry for people like you who see Kenny as progress!!

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I appreciate your sympathy. The Hungary and Portugal performances show progress imho. We certainly showed nothing like them in O'Neill's last year in charge.

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Originally Posted by Stuttgart88

It was the same after Wales' Nations League winner against us. We were dissecting who could have prevented the header across goal. was it the CB, or was it the full back for failing to get the cross in or was it a midfielder for failing to stop the initial ball. That Egan eluded his marker for his goal didn't diminish it. Ronaldo did what world class forwards do - he found space at precisely the right time. For me the worst mistake was a tired Hendrick making a tired clearance straight back to the Portuguese guy instead of finding touch.

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100%, and to save space, agree with your previous post too. There's a time and a place for cold analysis - there's still loads that we need to improve on. Now's not that time to do that. As you say, optimism is increased, and maybe our nadir was actually falling behind against Andorra :-)

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All goals are preventable in hindsight. I think we go OTT analysing the goals we concede sometimes. I'm not singling you out, you're only getting sucked into this conversation.

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Not a problem, I hold my hands up though, it probably is a pain to read. I'm literally the personification of the meme of "somebody said something wrong on the internet"!

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Originally Posted by Stuttgart88

You'd suck the joy out of an orgasm. Yeah some of the ratings were a bit generous and some flaws were overlooked but if you and your ilk want to look at this through your glass-half-empty lenses then I feel sorry for you, really I do.

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I guess thats probably aimed at me too :) Why cant we temper the positive analysis, its actually refreshing that no ones got too carried away either way here. At the end of the day its another moral defeat, but its key the team move on from this and don't talk like Kenny has in the past about great past performances. We're still 0 points at the bottom of the table after 3 games, its the worst start I can remember in a campaign in all my time of watching. Portugal have been inconsistent in qualifying and an indifferent Euros, drawing with Serbia, going behind to both us and Luxenbourg. We had 27%/28 possession according to Google/ESPN. Portugal had 29 shots and around 2.5 times the amount of passes we had. We were completely dominated yet the only time we looked their equals was when we did attack, but chose to abandon that in the second half - i am aware fatigue played a part here.

There were some great individual performances, but if they aren't seen again on Saturday and Tuesday and wins then last night was futile(I mean the individual herculean performances).

I'm not too inclined to look for defenders to blame for an overworked defence finally conceding two free headers to one of the best players and one of the very best headers of a ball I've ever seen. Tbh, we were fortunate that Portugal wasted some chances before that, one in particular that was blazed over from right in front of goal.

There are a lot of positives to take from it - the key thing now is to actually get that through to the players who must be utterly dejected. If we can have individual players playing so well against Portugal, there's no reason they can't do it against Azerbaijan. But there's also no reason they couldn't have done it against Luxembourg and other teams without Portugal's quality, yet they didn't.

Last night showed that when you get the very most out of this squad, there is indeed something substantial there to work with. Now the challenge is to consistently get that out of them.

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Originally Posted by mark12345

You'll get no argument from me. The officials were awful, truly awful. Take for instance the O'Shea / Ronaldo incident before the penalty - O'Shea, according to the rules deserved a yellow for kicking the ball away, but Ronaldo should have been given red for striking the Irish player. They are the rules as written by FIFA but the referee and both of his assistants were all simultaneously looking the other way, as they were for most of the evening. That was just one of a few questionable incidents on the night.

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Ronaldo pushed O'Shea's shoulder. O'Shea clutched his head and looked as though he was about to fall to the ground. If an opposition player did that, we'd be outraged at the cheating and gamesmanship.

there's another angle of Ronaldo's second here. He's constantly moving around Coleman, who's trying to watch him and the ball at the same time, until he makes enough space for himself for the run and jump.
At a certain point, there's nothing you can do about ability and intelligence like that

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Originally Posted by tetsujin1979

there's another angle of Ronaldo's second here. He's constantly moving around Coleman, who's trying to watch him and the ball at the same time, until he makes enough space for himself for the run and jump.
At a certain point, there's nothing you can do about ability and intelligence like that

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No offence to anyone, but I rest my case. That's outstanding.

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Originally Posted by paul_oshea

Portugal had 29 shots

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of which 7 were actually on target...

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Originally Posted by Straightstory

Ronaldo pushed O'Shea's shoulder. O'Shea clutched his head and looked as though he was about to fall to the ground. If an opposition player did that, we'd be outraged at the cheating and gamesmanship.

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yeah I didn't like it either but it happens I suppose. That's the best I can say about it!