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It was literally eleven men against one when Czech Republic met Portugal in the first quarterfinal of Euro 2012. And that one man was Cristiano Ronaldo, who towered over anything and everything else in the Portuguese squad. He also scored a late goal as expected to put Portugal through to the semi finals defeating the Czechs 1 – 0. The Czechs were handicapped with the absence of their star striker Tomáš Rosický due to injury and Michal Bilek decided to go the Greek way – probably intimidated by the Portuguese – to fall back and wait, frustrating and strangling the Portuguese and attack when it is time. Portugal though would have none of it, but the Czech held out longer than anyone would have anticipated.
Strategies work only till the time when they don’t fall apart. And it did work in the first half, when the Czech did defend profoundly but never actually seemed threatening. And they seemed to defend Ronaldo more than the Portuguese team itself, with on occasions Ronaldo being marked by even five men! Nothign much happened for the Czech in the first half, in fact in the entire game. They challenged the Portuguese goal post only twice – yes, only two times throughout the entire game – and both were off target, compared to the twenty that Portugal had. Rui Patricio was totally jobless the entire game while Portugal ganged up around Ronaldo and had almost total control of the game. They launched waves of attacks with Ronaldo slamming a couple into the post including a backwards-flip bicycle kick and another one into Petr Cech’s arms. Nani also tested Cech once. But still, the Czech dispossessed the Portuguese valiantly and the game was mostly limited to the midfield, Portugal breaking and launching into a run ever now and then. It seemed to be only a matter of time till the Czech gave up, and that moment came in the 79th minute, when Cristiano Ronaldo launched himself high into the air to launch João Moutinho‘s beautiful pass into the net past Petr Cech. The Czech, despite their valiant efforts to hold out, had crashed out of the game. Petr Jirá?ek who was flying all over for the ground for the Czechs trying to hold out the Portuguese, was inconsolable.
Cristiano Ronaldo was everything in the game. He was both striker and playmaker, donning the cape of injured Hélder Postiga as well. He scored the goal, would have had another 4 or 5 if there were no goal post and Petr Cech, and set up a flurry of chances and led the Portuguese, dictated the Czechs and controlled the game. I don’t know if it is the media to be blamed, but the hype around him has grown to such proportions that it has almost be come Portugal = Ronaldo, and it seems like that the Portuguese team looks up to him for almost everything except goalkeeping (maybe). The Portuguese have earned a deserving victory, sure, but this one-upmanship will do more bad for them than doing good going forward. Portugal will now face whoever wins the France/Spain encounter.
