ontd_football | Portugal-Spain Report & Pic Spam

Firstly my seats were bloody far and my photos turned out terrible. Nevertheless I can contribute with some insight to how the game actually FELT like! All pics are from MaisFutebol.

It was a pity the stadium wasn’t full. But it was a cold 10ºC Wednesday night. Great atmosphere, nevertheless, including hundredths of Spanish fans who kept singing and rooting for their boys even when they were down.

The game included a celebration for the 100^th anniversary of the Portuguese Republic, apart from the obvious intent to promote the Iberian Bid for World Cup 2018.

Amazing to hear our national anthem sung by so many. The Spanish anthem is beautiful too. Especially the lyrics: PAMPAMPAMPAM.

Really impressed by Portugal. Proud, quick, combative, generous, excellent defence, and an attitude I don’t remember seeing since probably WC 2006. Paulo Bento deserves all kudos for bringing this team back where it belongs. Carlos Martins WEPT when he scored. We needed this victory more than ever.

I’ve always thought Spain played boring – tiqui-taca is just a more sophisticated name for cattenacio in my book – but it wasn’t until I watched them live that I realised how unexciting their style actually is. Of course the passing is almost aways perfect, but they play with their backs to the goal, FFS. Also it proves that they simply cannot react when they are one goal down. No wonder they won the WC with 1-0 results, all with goals scored in the late part of the game. And oh, even from 30m away they look hot. At least Iker and Llorente.

Iker was not amused.

Ronaldo got robbed of a wonder goal – what a crime. No wonder he got so pissed. "Even a blind person could see it was a goal." (Nani apologised later. They’re still BFFs)

Pepe was a beast in this game. As were Moutinho, Bosingwa, Pereira, Martins, Meireles, basically everyone.

Paulo Bento deserves an applause too. If only we'd got rid of Queiroz six months ago...

The game itself – no words to describe how awesome it was. Around mid-second half, the crown started shouting OLÉ! everytime a Spanish player touched the ball. Not to mention chants of "Portugal, Portugal", "Just one more", and "Who doesn't jump is Spanish".

Interesting bits:
- Before the match, living legend Eusébio presented Cristiano, Pepe, and Moutinho with plaques celebrating their 75th and 25th cap.
- Emotional moment at half time – António Gonçalves, who has worked with the National Team since 1977 (the responsible for the team’s kits) retired this year. There was an great hommage to him, and Figo and Pauleta were there!
- Congrats to Rui Patrício (Sporting and Portugal U-23) and Paulo Machado (Tolouse) for their first caps today!

Poor Iker. At least you're still "Campeón de Todo", like the Spanish fans were singing after the game ended. And, as some guy sitting behind me wisely pointed out, you still have Sara.

AND DON'T FORGET

:D