Portugal coach Fernando Santos says that the national team can be accused of making things difficult for themselves.
His comments came after the 4-1 win over Latvia – a score that could have been completely different had it not been for the goals from substitute Ricardo Quaresma. Real Madrid superstar Cristiano Ronaldo came up with a penalty after just 28 minutes. It provided the opening goal which was expected to open the floodgates. However, Portugal relaxed quite drastically after this goal and the Latvia were able to take advantage in the second half throughZjuzins.
The goal in the 67th minute put the cat among the pigeons and provided a major scare for Portugal. Since it was not a friendly match and Portugal needed to win this World Cup qualifying game in order to stay in touch with Switzerland. After opening the campaign with a loss against the Swiss, Portugal have managed to win the last two games.
However, the equaliser from Latvia gave the team a major scare before it was averted through goals from Quaresma. After leading the team to Euro 2016 success, Santos is surprised with the fact that Portugal are losing concentration rather quickly in games.
Portugal’s next World Cup qualifying game is not until March when they take on Hungary.”We complicated things in the first half because we lacked intensity. In terms of possession of the ball, we were good, but we lacked acceleration in our play.At the break, I spoke with the players and we started better, we created chances, played a little faster, but then we conceded a goal. However, the team reacted really well and got a goal themselves.Quaresma’s entrance worked really well, because when we think that these games are easy, we make them difficult for ourselves,” said Santos.