The story appears on

Page B12

November 19, 2010

GET this page in PDF

Free for subscribers

View shopping cart

Related News

HomeSportsSoccer

Portugal shocks lackluster Spain

WORLD Cup champion Spain slumped to its worst defeat in 47 years on Wednesday in Lisbon when it was routed 0-4 by Portugal.

While the Iberian pair used the match to promote their joint World Cup 2018 bid, Portugal got a measure of revenge for its loss to Spain at the World Cup in South Africa. It was Spain's worst loss since 1963 - a 2-6 defeat to Scotland.

"We couldn't have played any worse," Spain coach Vicente del Bosque said. "There are no excuses. We played a very open game and left too many chances for them on the counter."

Carlos Martins opened the scoring in the 45th minute by firing the rebound from Cristiano Ronaldo's shot past goalkeeper Iker Casillas.

Spain's sluggish defense was undone by Portugal's quick counterattacks in the second half as Sergio Ramos poked Helder Postiga's shot into his own goal three minutes after the break.

Joao Moutinho found Postiga for the third in the 68th before Hugo Almeida capped the victory in the third minute of injury time.

Spain looked listless for the second straight friendly after losing 1-4 to Argentina on September 7 while Portugal coach Paulo Bento continued his good run since taking over for Carlos Queiroz with a third straight win.

"We wanted to win, but could never have predicted a result like this against a team with Spain's dimension," Bento said. "The way we played had a lot of positives. The win does not bring points, but it does earn us prestige."

Nani directed most of Portugal's chances early on. Casillas tipped the Manchester United player's drive wide in the second minute before reading Nani's through ball to Postiga nicely in the 21st, coming out to block the chance at the right side.

Ronaldo did not return after halftime after hurting his leg from Busquet's first-half tackle. But Portugal's attack was unaffected.



 

Copyright 漏 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

娌叕缃戝畨澶 31010602000204鍙

Email this to your friend