Croatia’s first effort was Ivan Perisic’s 30th-minute shot, which he dragged wide of the goal.
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“Ronaldo is their main player, the aim is not to allow them to show how strong he is, we have to limit him”. It has not been easy for the Inter player to distinguish himself in a team which includes Luka Modric and Ivan Rakitic, but it appears that he is finally getting the recognition he deserves.
Portugal’s preparation has been hit by the double blow of having the shortest rest time of any of the 16 teams left in the competition and a nightmare journey north from their training base in the outskirts of Paris to Lens. While Modric and his teammates were not supposed to win their group against Spain, most analysts predicted that Portugal would also be good enough to finish in the top spot of their own group, but Cristiano Ronaldo and his teammates have not been performing the way they should have.
Up first we have Switzerland v Poland at 11pm (AEST).
Croatia and Portugal only played against each other three times.
Having squeezed into the Euro 2016 knockout stages after three contrasting group stage draws, Portugal are ready to move up a gear when they face Croatia in their mouth-watering clash in Lens on Saturday night.
Portugal progressed by virtue of three draws from three matches, the last of which was a six-goal thriller against Group F winners Hungary.
“We are facing a team consisting of extremely talented individuals”, he said in his pre-match press conference.
They tackle a Portugal team that has yet to win in France and if one takes Christiano Ronaldo out of the team, they look like an ordinary side. “We want to come out on top in all of them and go all the way”.
After leading Greece to the knockout stage of Euro 2012 and the 2014 World Cup based on a tightly organized defense, Santos followed the same philosophy and started rebuilding the Portuguese team.
“In this phase of the competition there are no easy opponents and we probably got the most hard”, he said.
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“We made a really great job in the group stages, but this is just the beginning”.
