The golden generation of Portuguese football consisted of Luis Figo, a ridiculously talented winger, Rui Costa, a slick playmaker and Pauleta, a dead-eyed finisher. FIFA World Footballer of the year Cristiano Ronaldo is all three combined. The former Manchester United winger is Portugal’s all time top scorer and best player heading into the tournament. The group also consists of Germany, United States and Ghana with Portugal hoping that their talismanic forward can carry the team to the latter stages of the tournament.
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Group F is one of two groups in the competition in which all four participants were also present in South Africa 2010 and to show how strong the group is, all four nations advanced out of their groups. Both Germany and Portugal were later knocked out by eventual champions Spain, while Ghana proceeded to the quarter finals at the expense of the USA in a tensely contested 120 minutes. Events contrived to deny Africa its first nation to reach the semi finals as Luis Suarez blocked a goal bound shot with his hand in the dying minutes of the game. Asamoah Gyan missed the resulting penalty and Uruguay advanced after the penalty shoot-out. From the attacking talent that Germany have combined to the minor defensive crises they are going through and Cristiano Ronaldo set to start, everything points towards a high scoring game. There will be goals in Salvador.
Portugal qualified by overcoming Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s Sweden in the playoffs where Ronaldo ran the show, scoring a spectacular hattrick in the second leg as they beat Sweden home and away. The Portuguese are in good form as their only defeat in the last 15 matches was in a friendly against Brazil back in September, last year.
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Germany have a habit of going far in recent major tournaments but have fallen short in the semi final stage in the last two World Cup tournaments as well as Euro 2012. They qualified for this year’s World Cup by losing just once in the qualifying campaign, comfortably topping the group ahead of Sweden. Germany coach Joachim Leow has made no secret of his plan to play high tempo football from the whistle in the hopes of wearing down the Portuguese in the midday heat and humidity of Salvador.
European giants Germany have lost just one of their World Cup opening games, a 2-1 loss to Algeria in 1982. They have drawn four times and have won the rest, a statistic that might strike fear into the hearts of Portugal fans. Germany striker Miroslav Klose can become the top World Cup scorer in this year’s competition as he is just a goal behind Brazil legend Ronaldo on the charts. The 36-year old is already his country’s highest goal scorer ever with his 69th goal scored against Armenia.
Joachim Leow’s Germany rarely fire blanks and Cristiano Ronaldo always looks like he will score anytime he plays making the Over/Under goals market in this match something of a sure bet – if there is anything like that in football. Odds of 2.00 will represent a sound investment for over 2.5 goals to be scored at the Itaipava Arena Fonte Nova. This bet would have paid out in three of Portugal’s last four matches and an incredible thirty five out of Germany’s last forty two games.
ONE TO WATCH
Sporting Lisbon midfielder William Carvalho has been tipped to do great things and this could be his breakout tournament. The youngster is an energetic midfielder with neat playmaking abilities.
TEAM NEWS
All of Portugal’s hopes in this competition lie on Real Madrid superstar Cristiano Ronaldo. The reigning World Footballer of the year has been struggling with a couple of injuries since winning the Champions League in May but should be passed fit to face the Germans.
Comparatively, Germany have a quite a few worries with Marco Reus ruled out of the entire tournament earlier on, Bastian Schweinsteiger nursing a knee injury and Philip Lahm missing most of training with an ankle problem. Defensive midfielder Sami Khedira is available but lacks match practice having missed six months with a knee injury.
Possible Lineups
Germany (4-2-3-1) : Neuer; Boateng, Hummels, Mertesacker, Durm; Khedira, Lahm; Muller,
Gotze, Ozil, Podolski
Portugal (4-3-3) : Rui Patricio; Pereira, Bruno Alves, Pepe, Coentrao; Moutinho, Carvalho,
Meireless; Nani, Ronaldo, Almeida
PREDICTION
This will be a very interesting match as Germany try to stop Portugal’s talisman Cristiano Ronaldo while the Portuguese defense try to figure out a way to contain the German machine.
Germany will press high while Portugal will look to play on the counter. This should see a few goals and a 2-2 draw is likely.
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