From the man behind the football king to the football king.

Chapter 983 Illusion
After the game, Santos' on-the-spot command and starting lineup arrangement were criticized by the media.

Some media questioned why Santos only called up Dalot and did not call up any of the other international players who played for the three major Premier League clubs. Some media also questioned his substitutions during the game.

This defeat was too sudden for the Portuguese team, as well as for the Portuguese media and fans. After all, the last time the Portuguese national team lost was in the fifth round of the second UEFA Nations League group stage in 2020. In the subsequent 22 games, Portugal achieved a terrifying record of 21 wins and 1 draw, including top teams such as the Netherlands, England, Italy and Spain, which were defeated by Portugal one after another.

It seems that the defeat to Hungary, which is ranked 41st in the world, was really unreasonable.

Some people think that the reason for this defeat is that Santos did not choose to recruit several core players who play for Premier League giants, completely forgetting that the public opinion before the game was overwhelmingly in favor of not recruiting these players and giving trust and respect to other Portuguese internationals. Now they put all the blame for the loss on other players.

Some people also believe that the failure was not due to the failure to recruit several core players including Bruno who play for Premier League giants. The strength of other Portuguese international players is definitely not as insufficient as reflected in this game. The main problem is that there is a problem with the use of players by head coach Santos.

A failure seemed to destroy all the warmth and tacit understanding that had been established before.

This is certainly due to the problems with Santos' use of players in this game, but there may be a deeper reason. That is, when everyone's appetite has been raised by the previous victory, how to face this huge psychological gap?
………………

The Portuguese team, or Portuguese football, now has a new problem, that is, a kind of "blind optimism and self-confidence."

Since Bruno rose in world football, he and Ronaldo led Portugal to win the first world championship in team history in 2016, and then won five major championships in a row, including the last Confederations Cup in 2017, the World Cup in 2018, the first UEFA Nations League in 2019, the European Cup and the second UEFA Nations League in 2021, dominating world football for an era. It seems that Portuguese fans and the media believe that the golden age of Portuguese football has arrived.

What is there to worry about when playing against Hungary, which is ranked 41st in the world?
But in fact, I don’t know how many people can clearly realize that the current performance of the Portuguese team does not truly reflect the level of Portuguese football.

The fact that they were able to win six major championships in a row did not mean that they really had the absolute strength to dominate world football. It can only be said that Portuguese football, including Santos himself, was lucky to have encountered a certain person who came out of nowhere at this time, and it was that guy who changed the Portuguese team's results.

But he can only improve the national team's competitive performance, but cannot change the overall outlook of Portuguese football.

What would Portuguese football be like without a certain cheater? In another time and space, it has actually been proven that the Five Shields do have the strength to compete with the world's top teams, but they are still far from dominating world football.

They can participate in the world championships stably and even enter the knockout stage, but if they want to win the championship, they can only rely on luck.

Therefore, in another time and space, after Portugal luckily won the 2016 European Cup, it only won two European Nations Leagues whose value has yet to be tested. In the four world championships, it was eliminated in the quarterfinals three times and was eliminated in the first round of the knockout stage once.

This is the true strength of the Portuguese team!

………………

After Portugal lost the game, Bruno was surrounded by Portuguese reporters based in the UK outside the club's training base the next day, wanting to hear his opinion on the game yesterday.

"I watched the game," Bruno said at the beginning, first to make it clear that he didn't speak nonsense without even watching the game, and then he concluded, "I don't have any feelings."

"Is it because of disappointment with failure?" a reporter asked.

Bruno looked at him in surprise and said, "How is that possible? Why should we be disappointed about losing a game? Besides, it was an ordinary friendly match, so I don't have any feelings about it."

"But some people also said that if you were there yesterday, you would have definitely won the game..."

Bruno shook his head and said, "That's too amateurish. I can't even guarantee that we can win if we go out on the field. The ball is round. What if we fly thousands of kilometers to participate in the game and are not in good condition, and play like sleepwalking on the field, and lose the game? How do we explain that?"

"It's not that there is no such possibility. We are also human beings, not robots. How can there not be some headaches or unexpected situations? I understand and agree with the coach's decision not to call us back to play. Cristiano, Diogo, Bernardo, Joao and I have played too many games recently. If I were him, I would not call a group of exhausted people to play."

“So losing to Hungary is normal?”

"What else?" Bruno asked back, choking the reporter who asked the question and being unable to speak.

"But the key is not the result, not that we are not allowed to lose, but losing to an opponent like Hungary..."

Bruno sighed, then said: "It's just a friendly match, there's no need to make a big deal out of it. The purpose of this game was to observe more players and reserve more talents for the national team to cope with the UEFA Nations League in June and the World Cup at the end of the year. These goals have been achieved, and I think it's very good." "Besides, Portugal has not lost in 20 consecutive games, which has put a lot of psychological burden on many people. Now that we have lost in a less important game, it has also allowed everyone to unload this psychological burden and start a new journey with a light load."

After saying that, he waved his hand, stopped answering questions, and turned and walked away.

………………

On that day, not only Bruno was asked about the national team's recent defeat in the interview, but other Portuguese players who stayed in the UK were also asked almost the same questions by reporters.

Their answers were similar to Bruno's. First, they did not think that they lost the game because they did not go back. Second, they did not think that the failure of this game would have any impact on the China-Portugal team.

Especially when captain Cristiano Ronaldo was interviewed, he felt it was strange that everyone was so upset about the defeat in such an insignificant friendly match, and he didn't understand what the big deal was.

What seemed like a shocking defeat to Portuguese domestic opinion seemed normal to them.

So some people have a conspiracy theory, is this an excuse made by the players who did not return to their country?
Of course, this conspiracy theory has little market because it is too ridiculous. People who believe in this conspiracy theory can basically be classified as "brainless".

But since both the captain and spiritual leader of the team, Cristiano Ronaldo, and the real core player of the team, Bruno, have said so, everyone can only temporarily put aside their anxiety and patiently wait for the arrival of the third UEFA Nations League in June.

When all the players return to the team, we will see how they perform and what the results will be.

Of course, there were national team competitions before this.

In fact, just three days later, Portugal has a friendly match with Denmark.

This is the second friendly match of this international match day.

………………

The current Danish team is a very strong opponent!

The Danish team performed very well in the European qualifiers for the Qatar World Cup. In Group F, which lacked top teams, they won eight consecutive games, scored 27 goals, and conceded no goals, and got the ticket to the Qatar World Cup two rounds in advance.

The Danish team performed very well on both offense and defense throughout the qualifying period. On offense, they scored 30 goals, averaging 3 goals per game, second only to England (3.9 goals), Germany (3.6 goals), the Netherlands (3.3 goals), and Belgium (3.1 goals), and tied with Portugal. On defense, they conceded only 10 goals in 3 games, second only to Switzerland and Italy (8 goals conceded in 2 games).

The outstanding performance also made the Danish team's world ranking rise steadily, surpassing the two traditional powerhouses of the Netherlands and Germany, squeezing into the top ten, ranking ninth, becoming the biggest dark horse in world football in recent times.

Facing Portugal, which was missing many core players such as Bruno, Ronaldo and Bernardo, the Danish team won almost without any bloodshed, beating Portugal 0:2 at home.

Although Portugal lost this game more thoroughly, the reaction of the Portuguese domestic media was not that big.

After all, Denmark is one of the hottest teams in world football recently. Before this international match day, Santos decided not to call up several important members of the national team including Bruno and Ronaldo. Everyone was prepared to lose to Denmark away.

In addition, there is a precedent that the team has lost to a "weak team" like Hungary, so no one will be surprised by this.

However, as a result, the Portuguese team ended the first international match day in 2022 with two consecutive defeats.

Although this will not affect anything, even their advantage in the FIFA world rankings has not changed. The outstanding performance in the past few years has established an unshakable advantage for this king's team in the world rankings.

But the two consecutive defeats still made many people notice the Portuguese national team's reliance on its two core players, Bruno and Ronaldo.

It can even be said that without Bruno and Ronaldo, the two core players, Portugal cannot even be considered a first-class team, let alone dominate world football!
(End of this chapter)