Like the Vietnamese women's team, the Portuguese girls are participating for the first time in the biggest football festival on the planet. They have a ticket to the 2023 Women's World Cup after defeating the Cameroon women's team 2-1 in the intercontinental play-off final of Group A. With the determination and leadership of coach Francisco Neto, the Portuguese women's team is making very clear progress.
Coach Francisco Neto helps the Portuguese women's team become more and more perfect
The Portuguese women's team has many players who have reached the peak of their careers, most of whom play for Benfica. Therefore, mutual understanding is indisputable. In the past few years, the Portuguese women's team has often alternated between a 4-4-2 formation with a diamond midfield and a 4-3-3 formation. When facing strong opponents, coach Francisco Neto has his players play cautiously, sitting deep in a 4-4-2 formation. Conversely, when facing opponents of equal strength or weaker, they will apply a 4-3–3 style of play. The player playing in the number 6 position will be asked to drop deep in attacks and push the players playing in the number 8 and number 10 positions up high.
At EURO 2022, the Portuguese women's team was in the same group with the Swiss, Netherlands and Swedish women's teams. After 3 group stage matches, they had 1 draw, 2 losses and conceded 10 goals. However, since then, the Portuguese women's team's defense has improved a lot and that has helped them have successful matches. According to statistics from Opta , after EURO 2022, the Portuguese women's team has played 10 matches and only conceded 7 goals, or less than 1 goal/match.
Portugal women's national team's defensive line-up
Goalkeeper Patricia Morais, who plays for Sporting, is always the number 1 choice of coach Francisco Neto because of her ability to develop the ball from the back very well. In front of the 31-year-old goalkeeper, there is usually the presence of the central defender pair Carole Costa and Diana Gomes. Winger Ana Borges is pulled down to play on the right wing. Opposite her will be Joana Machado, creating a difficult-to-break defense quartet.
When defending, coach Francisco Neto's team also showed great initiative. They were ready to press right on the opponent's field. A typical example was the second match in the group stage of EURO 2022 women's football, where the team faced the Netherlands women's team. The girls of the Portuguese women's team continuously arranged 5 players on the opponent's field. In which, 2 wingers played the role of pressing the opponent's 2 central defenders and the rest blocked the receiving lines of the Netherlands women's midfield.
5 players of the Portuguese women's team (in blue) were constantly present in the opponent's field.
In attack, the Portuguese women's team love to keep the ball at their feet. They control the ball intelligently, constantly running to create space in the opponent's half. The fact that most of their key players play for Benfica helps their attack become more cohesive.
The team led by coach Francisco Neto has many ways to approach the opponent's goal. In each match, the Portuguese women's team has a short passing success rate of 83%, an expected goal rate of 80.3% and a shot on target rate of 53.5%, which are really impressive numbers. In addition to the explosive faces of the attacking players, the players in the midfield are always mobile, ready to rush up to finish the second line, creating storms in front of the opponent's goal. Many players in their squad have very good individual skills and have a very high winning rate in one-on-one situations.
In addition, the Portuguese women's team is very clever in creating numerical superiority when attacking. They are especially good at creating advantages in the midfield area, then creating space on the wings for the full-backs and wingers to exploit. If the opposing defense does not contain the danger of the Portuguese women's attacking midfielders, the home team's goal will certainly be put in a state of alarm.
The creative midfielders of the Portuguese women's team are dangerous when attacking.
They always find space even under pressure from the opponent.
In the most recent match, the Portuguese women's team made it very difficult for England, the team ranked 4th in the world women's football rankings. Although they are considered equal to the team of coach Mai Duc Chung, with recent progress, the Portuguese girls are still an unknown in Group E.
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