Chapter 151 The Real Portuguese National Team Debut

On the evening of September 1, 2014, European local time, the summer transfer windows in various European countries were closed one after another. However, the news that Bruno was about to transfer to Real Madrid, which had been hyped by the media for a summer, has not been officially announced.

At this time, the fans realized that they had been deceived by these hateful media for another summer.

However, Udinese fans are very happy that the team can have Bruno for one more season.

At the same time, Bruno had already returned to Portugal by plane. But instead of returning home to Porto, he flew straight to Lisbon.

During this international match day, Portugal has only one game, which is the first round of the qualifying group stage of the 2016 European Cup. Portugal will face Albania at home.

According to the previous grouping, Portugal was placed in Group I together with Albania, Denmark, Serbia and Armenia. This was also the only group among the nine groups with only five teams.

Due to the restructuring of this European Cup, the finals circle has been expanded from the previous 16 teams to 24 teams, so the promotion rules have also changed a lot.

The top two teams in the nine groups, plus the third place in the group with the best results, will directly advance to the finals. The remaining 8 third-placed teams in the group will fight against each other in two rounds of knockout rounds, and the four winners will also advance.

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For Portugal, the only goal is naturally to get first place in the group.

Although in the FIFA rankings after the World Cup, Portugal suddenly dropped from fourth place in the world before the World Cup to 11th place due to their poor performance in the World Cup, they are still the highest-ranked team in Group I. Their strength It is also the only one in the group.

However, the other four opponents in the group are not weak. Denmark ranks 26th, Serbia ranks 31st in the world, Armenia ranks 36th, and Albania ranks relatively low, ranking 70th.

Regarding this European Cup, Bruno paid attention to the finals matches at the beginning and remembered that Portugal almost reached the finals in a tie under the strange competition system.

This also caused Ronaldo to be ridiculed by many black people for entering the final or even winning the championship, because Ronaldo only played a small amount of time in the final due to injury.

But for the qualifiers, Bruno didn't know what the situation was.

However, with Portugal's absolute strength advantage, there is no problem in winning the first place in the group.

The bad news for the Portuguese is that top star Ronaldo will miss the game due to injury. The good news is that Santos recruited Bruno, who performed extremely well in Serie A, into the team and gave him a starting position without hesitation.

Moutinho, the original main attacking midfielder, was put on the bench.

It is said that once an emperor comes, so does his court. Although Santos' new Portugal squad is not much different from Bento's in the squad, many people have been replaced in the starting lineup, including all three midfielders. People, and all three of them were born in the 1990s: William Carvalho in 1992, Andre Gomez in 1993, and the last one was Bruno in 1994.

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This is a very special day for Bruno.

The game started at 7:45 pm local time in Portugal on September 7, more than 4 hours later it would be his 20th birthday.

It can be said that the result of this game is his 20th birthday gift to himself.

However, when the game started, Bruno discovered that something seemed wrong.

Portugal is really too unfamiliar to him. The only one he is familiar with is Andre Gomez. The two were teammates in the Toulon Cup and World Youth Championship last summer. The other one is Pepe and Coentrao in the defense, they played against Bruno in the European Super Cup last month.

The rest of them only cooperated briefly two days before the game. Bruno knew nothing about their playing characteristics, and there was no tacit understanding at all during the game.

On the contrary, Albania played a very integrated game. Fortunately, their strength was limited and their style of play was relatively simple. The Portuguese team quickly stabilized their position, allowing their opponents to try and hit behind without success.

The Portuguese players had a lot of running and pressing in the midfield, which made Albania very uncomfortable and made frequent mistakes.

The most fatal one occurred in the 12th minute. After Bruno and Nani played together continuously, Nani volleyed from the front of the penalty area, but was bravely saved by the opponent's goalkeeper.

However, nine minutes later, the Portuguese team's defense made a mistake of its own and failed to clear the opponent's long pass. The opponent seized the opportunity, but unfortunately failed to stop the ball and wasted an empty-net opportunity.

The first half ended with 0:0.

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At halftime, head coach Fernando Santos affirmed the team's performance in the first half, but also encouraged the team to keep up their efforts, believing that Portugal's personal strength is better than Albania's and has a good chance of winning. of.

Before the start of the second half, Santos replaced the original winger Vierinha and replaced him with teenager Caballero. Vierinha performed poorly in the first half, and Santos planned to replace them with new players to see how things went.

But after the start of the second half, Albania also adjusted its tactics and began to actively engage in pressing in the midfield, catching the Portuguese team's passing and receiving errors. For a while, the Portuguese players who were not familiar with the ball made consecutive passing and receiving errors, and Albania frequently launched counterattacks.

Especially in the 51st minute, Roche broke through Ricardo Costa's pass from the right, and Baray retreated to get rid of Pepe's defense and volleyed the goal.

0:1, Portugal is lagging behind at home.

Now Fernando Santos finally couldn't sit still. Ricardo Horta was quickly replaced by William Carvalho who made a mistake to strengthen the attack.

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In this game, Bruno was heavily targeted by Albania.

Obviously, Albania also knows Bruno and is quite afraid of him. They consciously strengthened their defense against Bruno on the court.

But Albania is a team ranked 70th in FIFA. In Bruno's view, the opponent's defense has a large gap and it is easy to escape the gap.

In the first half, Bruno passed good balls several times, but failed to score because his teammates failed to understand his intentions or failed to seize the opportunity.

The teammates also don't know much about Bruno's playing style, which leads to problems when they pass the ball to Bruno.

Thinking of this, Bruno had an idea in his mind. Since Albania valued him so much, he might as well be responsible for attracting defensive attention and creating opportunities for his teammates to open up the defense.

After changing his thinking, Bruno still ran very actively, and every time he ran to the opponent's open space to catch the ball, attracting the defensive attention and then passing the ball to his teammates in the weak defensive area.

Bruno's change immediately caused a significant change in the Portuguese team's situation on the court.

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As the saying goes, a person's name is like the shadow of a tree.

Bruno's achievements in Udinese have been reported in great detail by the Portuguese media. The players of the Portuguese team all admire this teammate who is much smaller than themselves, which makes them tend to pass the ball to Bruno. When Bruno changes, After taking on the role, he immediately revitalized the team's midfield and frontcourt offense.

When the game reached the sixty-minute mark, Bruno suddenly ran into the space on the left to catch the ball.

Nani immediately passed the ball over, and Bruno stopped the ball behind him, turned around and chased the ball.

This sudden move immediately surprised the Albanian defensive players. There were three defensive players around him who rushed towards him at the same time, naturally missing Nani on the right.

At this moment, Bruno suddenly made a direct pass and accurately sent the ball diagonally in front of Nani.

Originally, Nani was still hesitating whether to run over to meet Bruno, but unexpectedly he saw the ball coming out. He was so surprised that before he had time to think, he directly chased the ball as fast as possible.

Nani chased the ball and gradually felt a sudden enlightenment. When he caught up with the ball, he clearly saw that there were no defensive players around him, and there were already teammates in the penalty area.

The next thing happened naturally. Nani crossed the penalty area on the right side of the penalty area. Forward Edel near the penalty spot quickly followed up and pushed the ball into the Albania goal.

1:1, Portugal quickly equalized the score three minutes after conceding the ball.

The audience burst into applause.

Eder, the hero of the goal, quickly rushed to Nani and hugged his teammate hard, while other players of the Portuguese team also rushed forward.

This goal is really important to the Portuguese team.

They all could imagine how much pressure they would feel after the game if they lost to Albania, the weakest group in the group, at home.

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After the Portuguese team equalized the score, Albania became a little anxious and invested heavily in the offensive end. However, the Portuguese team itself is good at defensive counterattacks. In addition, Albania's offensive characteristics are single, so it is not difficult for the Portuguese team to defend.

The defense was solid and the counterattack began to be effective.

In the 68th minute, right back Pereira stepped forward to assist. Bruno raised his hand to ask for the ball again. After stopping the ball, he took two steps laterally and suddenly made a diagonal pass with his left foot to the left. Nani caught up with the ball and happened to be unguarded. , where can I be polite, just slap my feet and hit him.

Football is in the Albanian goal again.

2:1, Portugal took the lead!

If the first goal just now was not obvious, then Bruno's role in Nani's goal was fully reflected, especially his passing vision, which ensured that the team could suddenly get the ball from Shift from the right to the left, catching the opponent off guard.

Just five minutes later, after Bruno received the ball on the right side of the penalty area, he got rid of the defensive player and distributed the ball to the right side of the penalty area. Caballero cooperated with the assisting right back Pereira, and Pereira knocked back from the baseline. Bruno stepped in and hit the empty goal.

3:1!