Portugal did a great job of welcoming the Croatia team (5-1) and took a fundamental step towards Euro 2025, in a match highlighted by https://twitter.com/selecaoportugal/status/1772692512580264150/photo/1.
Fábio Silva and Pedro Santos scored twice and were the highlight of the match, while Paulo Bernardo and Ljubicic scored the remaining goals. With this result, the Portuguese team has 18 points and moves away (even further) from Greece, second placed with 14 points.
Breathtaking
What a 25 minutes, dear reader. There was a bit of everything: goals, great goals, a penalty, mistakes, opportunities… and a practically sealed result. In short, 4-1. Diachronically, throughout the 45 minutes, Portugal was on top, suffered, responded, massacred and managed.
In the third minute, Mateus Fernandes – with a clever pass – isolated Pedro Santos who, with a very strong shot, hit the bar and almost scored… but https://twitter.com/CarlitaRuf20673/status/1772678451226362020. During the reload, the Rangers striker did not allow the ball to enter voluntarily and killed the play in the way he knows best: by scoring the goal.
A few minutes later, Pedro Santos took advantage of an unbelievable mistake by Grozanic and, this time, the goal was his. At 15′, however, Samuel Soares – following a corner and in an attempt to alleviate the danger with a punch – ended up hitting Perkovic and Ljubicic, like panenka, didn’t give a chance. Before the break, there was still time for a great goal from Pedro Santos and a good finish from Paulo Bernardo after excellent individual work from Fábio Silva.
An authentic demolition of the national team, which could have taken on different aspects (even before the break) if Tiago Tomás hadn’t made it easy on Cavlina.
Management and Fábio Silva
In the second half, the game lost – inevitably and predictably – the excitement of the first half and Portugal went into management mode. Furthermore, only Fábio Silva sought (and achieved) more.
After two small scares from the Croatian team – Mauric allowed a good save to Samuel Soares -, Fábio Silva beat Dino Grozdanic and won the penalty. In the conversion, the Rangers striker didn’t make it easy and scored twice in the game.
Until the end, Zvonarek hit the post and Samuel Soares made it 5-1. An enlightening victory for the Portuguese under-21s, which added their second consecutive victory in the qualifying phase.
