One of the best players in the world against one of the best teams in the World Cup. Quite simply, Portugal-Germany is all here. On the one hand there is one of the two (it was decided this way, arbitrarily, and I would say it could be fine) the strongest footballers on the planet, on the other a complex team, full of talent in every department, but which seriously risks remaining an unfinished one.
At 18 today (Italian time) group G opens. It is a difficult group, one of the toughest in this first phase. In addition to the two European teams, two of the historically best formations of the old continent, in fact, there are also Ghana (results in hand, the best African of the last World Cup) and the United States of Jurgen Klinsmann, who left Landon Donovan at home, but they always remain a solid and fearsome team.
The probable favorite to win the group will emerge from the clash between Germany and Portugal. Germany, still coached by Joachim Low, is a very different team compared to the German tradition: they usually show off a good game, very offensive and breezy, but they always seem to lack the mental soundness necessary to win on big occasions. Under the guidance of Low (who was Klinsmann's deputy in 2006) the Germans finished second in the 2008 European Championships, and lost in the semifinals of the 2010 World Cup and 2012 European Championships (defeated, as you will recall, by Balotelli's brace). .
Confidence around the coach, who has always enjoyed enormous credit for the good game given to a rather young national team, seems to have diminished a bit: the serious risk, in fact, is that of seeing one of the most talented generations of German football (that of Ozil, Goetze, Muller, Kroos, Schweinsteiger and Lahm) always touching the laurel, but never reaching it, going to enter his name, fully, in the book of the great unfinished football.
On the other hand, Portugal relies on its superhero. Cristiano Ronaldo comes from the umpteenth triumphant season of his career, complete with a Decima brought home with his Real Madrid, but it seems to be no better, as we also saw in the Champions League final (penalty aside, very subdued).
All the ambitions of his national team revolve around his conditions: Portugal's game, in fact, revolves like the Earth around its Sun, the only one capable of giving meaning and danger to the game of the formation coached by Paulo Bento. There are other talented players, obviously, from Coentrao to Nani, passing through Moutinho), but the Portuguese national team seems to rely above all on their counterplay, based on Ronaldo's speed on an open pitch, as he also demonstrated in the play-offs against Sweden. In addition, the Portuguese lack a credible centre-forward as usual, given that Helder Postiga will play at the center of the attack, who spent the last six months (for the many who hadn't noticed) at Lazio.
If Ronaldo is fine, the match promises to be very hard-fought. Otherwise Portugal might not have enough arguments to answer Germany.
