Portugal World Cup 2010 Profile

May 5th, 2010 | by: Daryl | View Comments

Portugal made a patchwork job of qualifying for World Cup 2010, and have a head coach who most people know as an assistant. To make things worse they’ve been drawn into Group G with Brazil, Cote d’Ivoire and the unknown quantity that is North Korea.

So things aren’t ideal. But this is still a Portugal team bursting with talent. Yes, I’m talking about Cristiano Ronaldo, but not just Ronaldo. This isn’t a one man team. Portugal also boasts a solid looking defence and – finally – a striker who likes scoring goals. Read on for the full profile…

Nickname: Selecção das Quinas (Team of the Five Shields)

FIFA World Ranking as of April 28th 2010: #3

Group G Matches:
Portugal vs Côte d’Ivoire – June 15th, 3pm, Port Elizabeth
Portugal vs North Korea – June 21st, 12:30pm, Cape Town
Portual vs Brazil – June 25th, 3pm, Durban
Buy Portugal World Cup tickets

Coach: The 57 year old Carlos Queiroz has had an odd career. He’s already been Portugal manager once before, from 1991 to 1993, when he failed to qualify for either Euro ‘92 or World Cup ‘94. He’s had brief spells at Sporting, in MLS, in the J-League and the managed the United Arab Emirates national team, followed by the South African national team. He qualified for the 2002 World Cup with South Africa, but resigned before the tournament following a disagreement with his employers. There followed two successful spells as Alex Ferguson’s assistant manager at Man Utd, with a short but unsuccessful season at Real Madrid in between. Now he’s back in charge of Portugal, and has been since 2008.

Many see Queiroz as a better assistant than head coach, though that may be just a bias caused by spending much of his time as a high profile number two at Old Trafford. If he wants to be remembered as a successful head coach then he needs Portugal to perform in South Africa, and progress. Maybe his time in charge of Bafana Bafana will come in handy?

Key Players: Obviously Cristiano Ronaldo is important. Young Leo Messi is getting all the best player in the world kudos right now. But C-Ron is still up there. I’ll try and describe as if you’ve never heard of him: Fast, stepovers, strong, cocky, free-kicks, long range shots, goals. Ronaldo’s not easy to place positionally these days (remember when he used to be an out and out winger?) but he’ll likely line up for Portugal as either a very advanced wide man with license to drift inside, or as a sort of second striker. Either way he’s dangerous, and opposition defenders will know it, so if you like seeing Ronaldo take a kicking, World Cup 2010 maybe the tournament for you. Ronaldo’s never really turned it on in an international tournament, at least not in the way we’re used to seeing him do it (remember his so-so Euro 2008?). But don’t be surprised if South Africa is when he finally has the tournament his talents deserve.

One of the keys to Ronaldo’s success will be Brazilian born striker Liedson (pictured). Portugal were desperate for a striker for a long long time there, and the big hole up front looked to be sinking their World Cup 2010 campaign at one point. But everything seemed to change once Sporting striker Liedson finally got his Portuguese passport and started scoring goals for his adopted national team.

In midfield we could see the ageing but talented Deco, or possibly the 23 year old João Moutinho of Sporting, who seems comfortable both creating and defending. There’s also winger Simão Sabrosa, who was more productive than Ronaldo in qualifying, finishing as Portugal’s top scorer with four goals.

The serious defending will be performed by the centreback partnership of Bruno Alves and Ricardo Carvalho in central defence, who together will form an imposing barrier to oppposition attackers. Carvalho has been making John Terry look good for years at Chelsea, while Alves plays for Porto, but is often linked with big money moves to Champions League contenders.

Player with best YouTube video: With all respect to Deco, the only possible choice was Cristiano Ronaldo. Then the problem was choosing which video. I’ve gone with this one because it packs in a lot of showboating as well as goals, and doesn’t fall into the trap of boring us with endless replays.

Player with best name: Go to be Simão Sabrosa. For the alliteration yes, but also because I like pronouncing that squiggle over the a.

Player with best nickname: Do I dare give it C-Ron? Don’t Deco and Nani count as nicknames? OK, C-Ron it is.

Qualification: Very nearly a disaster. After just one win in the first five games, Portugal were in serious danger of being eliminated. Some of the credit for the turnaround has to go to Bruno Alves. With Portugal drawing 1-1 against Albania, and the game in injury time, he did this to win the game:

The rest of the credit should probably go to Liedson. As mentioned above, after the Brazilian became eligible to play, things made more sense in Portugal’s attack, and the team rallied to claim second place behind Denmark and a play-off vs Bosnia-Herzegovina, who they beat 1-0 both home and away to book a spot in South Africa.

National Anthem: A Portuguesa

Kit: Portugal will be rocking this little number from Nike.


Buy your Portugal World Cup jerseys in our store.

World Cup History:

Expectations: Queiroz has said he wants to match the 2006 achievement of a semi-final appearance, but I’d imagine quarter-finals would be an acceptable achievement.

Squad: TBA.

Blog: Miguel keeps us up to date on Portugal World Cup Blog.

- More World Cup 2010 Team Profiles.