This last-eight match pits Portugal, who are tied with England for the most goals so far this year, against Morocco, who haven't been scored against so far this year, in a battle of last-chance tickets.
This game Morocco and the last game against Spain to take a slightly different style of play, the last game of Spain and Portugal compared to more good at controlling the ball, so the last game of Morocco's defensive posture than this game more obvious. In addition, Portugal's defense compared to Spain is not excellent, Portugal's defense since the first game, in addition to the Uruguay, every game have dropped the ball, while the overview of Morocco, Morocco is a very good defensive discipline of the team, the performance is not good in sports, good at relying on the positioning of the ball as well as defensive counter-attacks to fight for points. This is also shown in this game, this game Morocco tactics are very clear is the defensive counterattack, and have the opportunity to rely on the positioning of the ball to build success.
The first half was a similar performance, with a number of successful set-pieces that posed a threat, and a low error by Diogo Costa to take the lead. The point here is that if a goalkeeper wants to strike, he must have accurate judgment to touch the ball and in front of the attacking player, Diogo Costa's strike was behind Nesyri, and finally formed an open goal which was easily scored by the opponent. With a one-goal lead, Morocco could relax and contract their defense, so in the second half, we could see 11 Moroccan players defending in their own half of the field.
The other thing worth discussing in this match was the Portuguese coach's scheduling, starting with the use of his star striker, Cristiano Ronaldo.
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Three performances in the preseason start weren't ideal, so the
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The coach put him on the bench for the match and replaced him with 21-year-old Goncalo Ramos of Benfica, who scored a hat-trick against Switzerland and therefore continued to start the match.
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Starting. However, Ramos was not able to assist his teammates in distributing the ball effectively when they were in a barrel formation. Generally speaking, to break through a barrel formation, it depends on individual ability and teamwork, like yesterday's Brazilian Neymar and French striker Mbappe's individual speed breakthroughs, or four years ago's
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It can also be done by individual ability to break through. On the other hand, it relies on the center forward as the pivot point to attract the defenders, and at the same time transfer the ball quickly to create openings for shooting.
In the first half, Ramos was not able to play the pivot effect, and in the first half, when Morocco sometimes went up to attack more gaps, Portugal could not take advantage of the attack. In the second half, after the fall of the second half before replacing the
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Despite his poor form, the goal-scoring ability is still not to be underestimated and has also attracted the attention of Moroccan defenders to the
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The pivot to the ball transfer, so that the second half of the Portugal has a lot of scoring opportunities, but Morocco goalkeeper Bounou's excellent performance to keep the victory in Morocco. The second issue worth discussing is the choice of goalkeeper. Portugal's Patrício plays for Roma in the Italian League, a level higher than Diogo Costa's Porto in the Portuguese Premier League, and in the three matches of the preliminaries, Diogo Costa made very low-level mistakes against Ghana and South Korea. In this match, he made a serious mistake that made Portugal lose in the last eight. The use of two players' choices made Portugal stop in the last eight in Cada.
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The career World Cup journey is also likely to come to an end.
on the other hand
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Morocco reminds me of the 2006 World Cup Champions - Italy, which had a higher star rating than this year's Morocco, relying on strong defense by goalie Buffon, center backs Cannavaro and Materazzi, midfielders Gattuso and Pirlo, etc., and the only goal conceded before the final was an oolong, which is similar to the current state of Morocco. However, in the next match, both England and France are very strong in offense, how to maintain a high intensity defense will be the key to determine how far they can go.
