Considering the standard of players in both teams, it was absolutely bizarre to see Portugal and France play out a game of such poor quality in their Euro 2024 quarter-final this evening.
Some of the biggest stars in world football were on show, but that made very little difference to the entertainment value in the fixture. The two sides were poor on the ball, overly defensive, and completely lacking any sort of intent in attack.
In short, it wasn't a great watch.
You could almost sense the groans in the stadium as the match petered out to a 0-0 after 90 minutes, with not even the most fanatical fan looking forward to sitting through another 30 minutes of a spectacle of this quality.
There were a couple of chances for each side, most of which were squandered. We always seemed destined for penalties, which proved to be the case.
In the end, France were the ones to advance to the semi-finals after scoring all five of their spot kicks.
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RTÉ pundits disagree over Cristiano Ronaldo issue
This was a difficult game to watch, with Cristiano Ronaldo playing a large part in that.
The Portugal captain was anonymous in this match, offering absolutely nothing in terms of movement or threat up top. Despite this, he played the full 120 and scored in the shootout.
While Ronaldo has been incredibly poor in this tournament, Stephen Kelly made a big claim about him after the game.
Speaking on RTÉ, he suggested that the 39-year old would still start for most of the top teams at Euro 2024. Didi Hamann rubbished the suggestion.
Kelly: Looking at the four teams on this side of the draw, you have Germany, France, and Spain. You kind of think would he start centrally for any of those teams?
I'd probably put him ahead of [Kai] Havertz for Germany at this stage. I know he's not performing well, but I'd pick him ahead of Havertz probably. Would I start him ahead of [Alvaro] Morata for Spain? Yes, probably. That's not me being a fan of Ronaldo, that's looking at what this side (of the draw) has offered...
Hamann: Out of the 24 teams, I probably couldn't name you five where I would play him. I don't think he offers anything these days.
You can say 'oh if you give him a chance', but how is he ever going to get a chance? He doesn't move an awful lot, he doesn't in the positions. Even in the group stages where they played minor or inferior opposition, he didn't get into those positions.
Kelly: I'm looking at these so called better teams like Spain and Germany. They create chances, I think players like Morata, Ronaldo would score some of the chances they created for him today.
Hamann: Stephen, you can't tell me you'd pick him ahead of Havertz. I think he's part of the reason that [Portugal] don't create any chances.
If you haven't got a centre forward, most of the time you play with ten men. He's not moving, he gave the ball away late in the game where [Theo] Hernandez just took the ball off him and walked past him. If you play without a centre forward, and they practically do, it's almost impossible to create a chance because they don't stretch teams, there is no threat, defenders squeeze up and say 'he's not going to run away from us'.
It's certainly difficult to imagine that any of the other top teams at Euro 2024 would carry a passenger in the way that Portugal have done for Cristiano Ronaldo.
In the end, it seems clear that they would have fared better in the tournament had Roberto Martinez made a brave decision and taken him out of the team.
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