Euro 2012 - Semi Final - Portugal vs Spain
Spain’s playing style has been making them unbeatable since 2006 in the knock out stages and in this competition they have been playing their typical “tiki taka” style, but with less width than in the last versions of this team. By using Fabregas as a “false 9”, this gives Spain one more man to exchange the ball, but they lost some verticality on their game as well.
So far in this competition, all teams that have faced Spain (well, we can exclude the Republic of Ireland in here) changed their tactic, approach and even their identity just to match Spain’s style. France’s lineup against them was absurd! The French national coach Laurent Blanc was so obsessed to put more men on the midfield to hold Spain’s unit that France lost their identity. The most ridiculous move was to put two right backs at the same time (Reveillere and Debuchy) in order to stop Spain’s most dynamic side, just to watch Spain score their first goal by their side in a Jordi Alba run throughout the left line.
Teams are changing their dynamic/tactic just to face Spain and they will obviously die with them. It is almost impossible to prepare a new tactic in 3 or 4 days against a team that has played in the same way for the last 4 years!
So what the Portuguese team will change for this contest? Well, nothing!
Portugal is pretty comfortable to play without the ball, as you can check on the Euro 2012 team stats of ball possession:
#1 Spain w/ 61%
#2 Germany w/ 57%
#4 Italy w/ 54%
...
#10 Portugal w/ 46%
#10 Portugal w/ 46%
As you can see, from all the 4 teams that have qualified for the semi finals, Portugal is actually the only team that in average doesn't have more ball possession than their opponents with just 46% of ball possession. This is pure strategy from the Portuguese side and for today, this won’t be different!
Portugal knows how to occupy the gaps without the ball, they are well coordinated and they have the tools to make some damage to the Spain’s weakest link: their right sided defense! Arbeloa is far from being a top defender and the right-center back Gerrard Pique isn’t in the best shape on this tournament. I’ve already mentioned that Portugal left side unit (Cristiano Ronaldo and Coentrao) is the best unit in this tournament, so I expect Portugal to make some serious damage today.
Portugal had 2 more days to rest than Spain and the truth is that Spain’s playing style is being often called “boring” because especially in this tournament there are some players who are completely fatigued. The most visible ones are Pique, Xavi and Busquets, so I expect some physical edge for Portugal, where only Raul Meireles looks to be tired from a long season.
These two teams know perfectly well each other. In the 2010 World Cup 2010, they faced each other in the R16 and I took Portugal +0,5 at the time with -116 / 1.86 odds. Spain won the game by 1-0, but with a goal that should have been disalowed due to offside. That Spanish team in my opinion back in 2010 was better than the current one, while there is no doubt that Portugal is a much better team than the one that played in 2010 against Spain. They have now better chemistry and finally Ronaldo, the best player in this tournament, is performing at his best level. Therefore, I expect Portugal to give Spain a huge fight and at least avoid losing on regular time. So, I'll take Portugal on the spread today. I also believe Portugal will be able to cause a lot of problems to the Spanish's defense throughout the whole game and so, I'll also take Portugal to score today on a small bet.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on Portugal (+0,5) @ -104 / 1.962 on Pinnacle
Pick: 1 unit on Portugal Team Total Over 0,5 @ -134 / 1.746 on Pinnacle
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