Goals: Portugal—Guerreiro 90’+2
Recap: Ninety minutes of uninspired football saw Portugal capture a 1-0 victory over Argentina on Tuesday.
What was billed as an epic encounter between two of the greatest footballers of the modern era failed to deliver. After 45 minutes of play, both Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi were substituted off. The quality of play suffered with the change. Both sides meandered about the pitch, failing to truly threaten the respective keepers.
Portugal, however, experienced the breakthrough in the dying seconds. Poor marking inside the area gifted a free header to Raphael Guerreiro. The 20-year-old left zero doubts with his finish.
Key Moment: Argentina’s best and only true look on goal came in the 49th minute. A through-ball from Angel Di Maria allowed Gonzalo Higuain to take-on Beto and pull the ball back across the face of goal. The linesman, however, blew the Argentine offside.
Man of the Match: A match devoid of quality makes Guerreiro’s contributions worthy of the award.
Lesson Learned: Portugal’s reliance on Cristiano Ronaldo is worsening with every match. Following his substitution at halftime, Portugal went an additional 45 minutes without an attempt on target. If not for his contributions in UEFA European Cup qualifiers, Portugal would have seen dropped points against Denmark and Armenia. The team managed to escape with a pair of 1-0 victories instead. Portugal escaped with another narrow result on Tuesday, finishing the year with three consecutive clean sheets, but an added dimension and dynamism is desperately needed if Portugal hopes to contend at the Euros in 2016.
Up Next: Both sides turn to the next calendar year (2015), with Portugal hosting Serbia on Mar. 29 and Argentina preparing for the 2015 Copa America.
Note: Credit all statistics to officially licensed data from Opta Sports (via WhoScored).
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