Fernando Santos - What was he cooking?
Setting fire to your food is not 'flambeing' it
Portugal’s 3-2 scoreline flattered to deceive.
A goal by substitute Rafael Leao sealed the win for Portugal after Cristiano Ronaldo’s penalty and Joao Felix’s strike were cancelled out by goals from Andre Ayew and Osman Bukari.
And if it wasn’t for an unfortunate slip by Inaki Williams in the 99th minute as he stole the ball off an unaware Diogo Costa, it could have been two points lost for Fernando Santos’ men against Ghana.
But this isn’t a piece about what didn’t happen, this is a piece about the lineup that Santos opened the game.
As the title of this piece states (and also confirms that I really need to take some time off Twitter), I’m going to try and understand what he was cooking with his tactics.
So to do that I think I need to show you how Portugal lined up:
This is how Google has it set up, though the official graphic had it as more of a 4-3-1-2 with Bernardo Silva in the 10 role and Bruno Fernandes sitting deeper.
Though it doesn’t particularly matter what the shape was on paper because during the match it was all over the place; players just went where they thought they could get the ball.
This is partly due to the team’s composition.
I don’t particularly like Danilo Pereira, but he’s played as a centre-back for PSG this season so you can accept his inclusion in the side next to Ruben Dias even if for me, Benfica’s Antonio Silva who was left on the bench is a much better option.
But then the team gets, for want of a better word, weird.
Joao Cancelo is an incredibly versatile full-back, able to be effectively deployed on the left or the right, so I would have played him at left back and brought Diogo Dalot in at right back (since Nuno Mendes is injured) to give the back line some balance.
Santos instead chose to play Cancelo and Raphael Guerriero, two incredibly offensive full-backs (in the attacking sense, not the insulting one).
This left massive space in behind that was exploited for both of Ghana’s goals, especially on the left-hand side. As well as committing too far forward, Cancelo was just not good in this game when it came to his defensive duties.
Then we get to the midfield and I think this is where things get overwhelmingly confusing rather than just being a bold choice like playing two attacking full-backs.
Ruben Neves has played as a lone six for Wolves this season, but he hasn’t played this role in a completely unbalanced midfield.
Bernardo Silva and Otavio both are very attack-minded and want to commit forward to exploit the spaces left by the opposition defence. This on many occasions left Neves on his own when Ghana won the ball back and the African side were able to easily play through the midfield (especially in the first half).
Ghana weren’t able to properly exploit this space until later in the game, but a better team will be able to a lot earlier.
The attack again continued to make little sense, Felix did not suit his role and seemed isolated while Fernandes also wasn’t able to influence the game effectively in the positions he kept receiving the ball.
Ronaldo is Ronaldo and I’d be here all day if I tried to explain the issues with how he plays, so let’s just say the 37-year-old does what he wants; sometimes it works, other times it doesn’t.
Overall it contributed to a really boring first half, with only a handful of chances created for Portugal that seemed to be more the case of Ghana switching off rather than Portugal overwhelming them.
So why has this wound me up so much? Why am I sitting here yet again writing about the World Cup when I could be enjoying watching Brazil vs Serbia or off playing God of War Ragnarok?
Well, because in the second half, Santos made two simple changes. He brought on William Carvalho and Rafael Leao for Otavio and Ruben Neves, and he changed the formation to a more traditional 4-2-3-1 with Fernandes playing as the central 10.
This is what it looked like…
… and instantly Portugal looked so much better.
Leao’s pace and ability on the ball out wide gave Portugal another outlet, but overall it was their more consistently available options going forward during transitions that were the killer blow for Ghana.
And in the centre, Fernandes was pulling the strings. He would pick the ball up in midfield and drive into space before picking out the free man.
Now it should be noted that this strength in transitions came after Ronaldo had slotted home his penalty, but Ayew had also equalised so it shouldn’t have been the case that the African side were just pushing too far forward in search of an equaliser.
So it begs the question, why not start with this in the first place?
Why make the fans and people watching at home suffer when a fully functional and devastating formula for winning was available from the start?
My only thought is he hoped by playing so many talented attacking players (around 6-7 in total) he could dominate possession and play exclusively in Ghana’s half.
The issue is Ghana time after time didn’t rush their passes or clear the ball wildly and instead looked to try and shrug off their marker and progress the ball into space, therefore putting Portugal in precarious situations.
Santos had underestimated his opposition, but if he had spent any time watching Ghana’s players away from their national team, he would have realised that they had this in their locker.
Of course, a lot of those situations involved Andre Ayew receiving the ball and him not being able to do much with it, but as I said before against a better team it could have caused them problems (and both Uruguay and South Korea will likely look to exploit this if he tries it again).
Santos is Santos, there’s nothing that he loves more than shoving all his favourites on the field and just hoping it works, before being bailed out because he has an incredibly talented squad to call upon.
A friend of mine read this and replied, ‘Well the simple answer is because he’s a sicko,’ and while that’s probably true, I’m going to give you a more eloquent metaphor.
It’s like a chef having all the ingredients available to make you the perfect meal but choosing to leave some of them out. Then when you’re complaining about how it’s missing something he throws some parmesan and black pepper over the top and you’re like ‘Damn I wish it had tasted like this the whole time, but I’m at least glad it tastes like this now.’
Overall there is still time for Santos to make changes and finally start playing his best XI from the start, but with him at the helm, I think it’s unlikely that Portugal are the team that will lift the trophy at the end of the competition.