Analysis of Portugal offensively

Portugal’s rise to the semi-finals might have come as a bit of surprise to most of us after their not so convincing group stage matches. However, their defensive solidity through out the knockout stages helped them to bypass Croatia and Poland, who were quite impressive through the tournament. Portugal’s lack of a solid offensive game plan against Croatia led them to a game of chicken against the Croats with them depending on the counter attack which finally succeeded.

The concerning thing about this Portugal team is their dependancy on crossing as an offensive game plan when in possession with 60% of their chances coming from crosses.

There are two ways to view this situation, the pessimistic view where Portugal’s exaggerated dependance on crossing will suffocate them offensively. The optimistic view where we could see a better Portugal with a more varied offensive game plan considering the quality of the players they have, and the availability of both Andre Gomes and Raphaël Guerreiro who was Portugal’s most influential player throughout the tournament. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Portugal going all the way with a much improved offensive game plan.