Cristiano Ronaldo cut a peripheral figure throughout until a quick counter-attack immediately after Ivan Perisic headed against the foot of a post saw his shot – the first on target all evening was saved by Daniel Subasic only to pop up to Quaresma two yards out. Portugal advanced to the quarter-finals thanks to Ricardo Quaresma’s decisive goal three minutes from the end of extra time, but unbelievably it had taken that long to produce a shot on target.
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Instead, we finally got the resolution at the end but Poland, having emerged from a penalty shoot-out earlier in the day against Switzerland, will not be quaking at the thought of Thursday’s quarter-final in Marseilles after watching this turgid encounter in Lens.
The Portuguese manager continued to say that “we faced an fantastic team” in Croatia, as everyone saw they played “some of the best football in the group stages” so it was important for the team to be prepared for that. As expected, Portugal played on the counterattack and for 120 minutes we controlled it and didn’t allow them a chance until that last one.
“We can not say football is fair, we had many chances, we dominated for the whole match, so it was not a psychological problem”, said Cacic.
“Sometimes we’d like to play a pretty game, but that’s not always how you win tournaments”.
It was Cristiano Ronaldo setting up substitute Ricardo Quaresma in extra time to give Portugal a 1-nil victory over Croatia. For the rest of us watching Portugal vs. Croatia in Euro 2016’s round of 16, it was a nightmare of a match, not that anyone in Portugal will mind.
Croatia looked the better side in the first half but Portugal had the first chance when Pepe headed Raphael Guerreiro’s free kick over the bar.
“We were up against an unbelievable team and this was always going to be tight and strong.
They always try to play their type of football”. Renato Sanches played a…
But when asked if he thought they could win the trophy, Corluka answered emphatically.
He has come close to a final a few times since, helping Portugal reach a World Cup semifinal for the first time, in 2006, after his quarterfinal penalty knocked out England.
It was an unusual match in that neither squad got a single accurate shot on goal all during regulation time and barely any more during the two 15-minute overtime periods at Bollaert-Delelis Stadium in Lens. At times we could have passed the ball faster but Croatia influenced that. They were the first efforts on goal from either side all night…in the 117th minute.
Nothing worth winning is won easily, and as Portugal suddenly find themselves in the last eight of Euro 2016 on Sunday morning, that theme will be running through the team’s training camp. We had a great chance and a good draw. Portugal are a high-quality team with a lot of experience.
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“I can’t choose (who we’ll face)”, Bale said post-game.
