PORTUGAL 2 : 2 SPAIN
(5-3 AFTER PENALTIES)
UEFA NATIONS LEAGUE FINAL
The UEFA Nations League Final between Portugal and Spain ended with 2-2 but Portugal won the match on Penalties : 5-4. It was an exhilarating final in Munich, where Cristiano Ronaldo and standout performer Nuno Mendes were on the scoresheet for Portugal while Mikel Oyarzabal and Martin Zubimendi scored two goals for Spain. Finally, Joao Neves scored the winning penalty for Portugal to seal the deal, Spanish forward Alvaro Morata was the only one who missed as he saw Diogo Cost save his penalty.
And there you go ladies and gentlemen, Cristiano Ronaldo has done it again, Portugal have done it again, second Nations League title for them, what a moment honestly.
You could see after the match how much it meant to Ronaldo, so happy to see him lift that trophy, everytime Ronaldo wins something it just feels like a personal victory, he has inspired so many people, he is the reason I am into football as well.
At 40 years of age playing nearly 90 minutes against probably Europe's best team that too in a final, that's just pure class, he also ended up getting a goal for himself by equalizing for Portugal. Now he has scored 138 goals for national team, out of this world stuff.
Now that we have talked about Ronaldo lets talk about the game.
And first things first, NUNO MENDES YOU BEAUTY, that was such a sensational performance, what a beast of a player, just amazing. He contained probably the best player in the world and Spain's most lethal weapon - Lamine Yamal, who could not have any significant impact thanks to Nuno Mendes, not only that Mendes was also a real attacking threat and ultimately scored a banger of a goal as well.
Everytime he drove forward with the ball it felt like he was going to create something, overall fantastic performance and easy man of the match.
He also won the man of the tournament, absolutely deserving, no doubt.
Literally every single player from Portugal stepped, be it Nuno Mendes, be it Bruno Fernandes, be it Diogo Costa, literally evryone stepped up.
At the start of the game Joao Neves did look sloppy at the right back position, I mean of course it is not his natural position and he was facing Nico Williams who is a fantastic winger, but it looked kind of stabilised after Nelson Semedo came in.
Pedro Neto in the first half as well, what pace he has got man just insane, the way he drives the ball forward especially in transitions is just too good. He is a serious talent.
Later on Rafael Leao came in who was absolutely brilliant as well. This shows the depth that Portugal have in their attacking department, you have Leao coming on in the 74th minute, and he was so good, just doing what he does best, he looked extremely lively whenever he got the ball.
Other two substitutes- Ruben Neves and Renato Veiga also did the job they were supposed to do, Ruben Neves also scored the winning Penalty.
Lets talk a little bit about Spain as well.
One thing that I really think is that as soon as Pedri comes off the pitch, Spain loose control of the game. Today as well when Fabian Ruiz and Pedri were substituted, Spain just could not control the game well.
None of Spain's substitution had a massive impact, Isco did take a shot but Diogo Costa made a wonderful save.
Then as discussed earlier, Lamine Yamal was rendered useless by Nuno Mendes and had a bad game, unnecessary to hate on him though, he is still just 17 years of age. Nico Williams did look like he was creating many chances but later on did not see much of him as well.
Mikel Oyarzabal is a fantastic player, just suits that false nine kind of a role, and he scored today as well.
I think Spain need to do better defensiveley, they need to be far better. Many of their weaknesses got highlited in today's match.
Luis De La Fuente made some wrong decisions in terms of substitutions, the same thing happened in the semi final against France as well, in that game as well Spain lost the control of the match and later France almost made a comeback, and that was the case today as well.
If we talk about stats, then as expected Spain had higher possession of the ball- they had 61% while Portugal had 39%, in terms of shots on target Spain had 6, they could convert only 2 of those into goals while Portugal had 2 and they made it count.
Spain created 3 big chances while Portugal created 2 big chances.
Spain had higher Xg(expected goals), that being 2.06, while Portugal created an Xg of 1.02.
It is going to be a tough pill to take for the Spainish players, they were agonizingly close and were brilliant for most part of the tournament, but fell short in the final
But at last only one stat matters.
If we talk about penalties, all the penalties were good but obviously Morata's one was not up to the mark he kind of gave it away and it was not that strong as well.
Overall I think it was a great game to watch, there were phases in the game, at some point Spain dominated while at other times Portugal showed their dominance. If I am being honest, going into the match I did not expect Portugal to be this good and I personally expected Spain to win this game, but yeah, Portugal proved me wrong. Just because of the storyline of Lamine Yamal vs Cristiano Ronaldo this match had generated so much hype around because usually people look down upon the Nations League, but this time around it was different due to the build up to the semi finals and finals. But now the next thing is FIFA club World cup in which some elite clubs are participating and will be interesting to watch as well as it is the first edition with the new format.
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