Madridistas in the UEFA Euro 2012: Coentrao and Khedira Shine in Germany’s Win

That headline describes pretty well how the game was. Germany managed to beat Portugal (with Jose Mourinho and his son in the stands) thanks to a late Mario Gómez goal, but the Mannschaft wasn’t as great as expected. It is true that Portugal showed big improvements since the last few friendly matches, but the German team clearly has more potential at reach. The Dutch team lost its game against Denmark, and that might be why Portugal and Germany were so respectful with each other’s chances.

Neither Cristiano Ronaldo nor Mesut Özil impacted the game. The Portuguese star played well at the end but was mostly invisible through the 90 minutes. Özil wasn’t key neither, probably because Thomas Müller and Lukas Podolski weren’t able to get through Portugal’s defenders. Coentrao was arguably Portugal’s best player alongside Manchester United’s Nani, and Sami Khedira was the reason why Cristiano Ronaldo performed so poorly.

Pepe, on his part, was brilliant as well. He even had a chance to score in the first half but the ball went off the post. With Bruno Alves’ help, he stopped Mario Gómez’s aerial game until the very end. Gómez was very lucky to get the ball in his late goal because Khedira’s cross was deflected by one of Portugal’s midfielders and that prevented Pepe and Alves from clearing the danger.

The Portuguese team probably played better than Germany. They didn’t enjoy as much possession, but had a lot of good scoring opportunities in the second half with Cristiano Ronaldo, Nani, and Varela. Mourinho and his son were caught by the cameras complaining after Oporto’s player missed what was Portugal’s best chance to tie the game up.

Fábio Coentrao hasn’t performed this well with Real Madrid. If he’s at this level, Real Madrid has the world’s two greatest left backs on its roster. The Portuguese defender needs to shake up from his poor season at Real Madrid (and so does Marcelo) and be ready for next season. After Denmark’s win, Portugal will need to win Bendtner’s team in order to have a chance to get the ticket to the Quarterfinals. Paulo Bento’s team is capable of doing that, and if Cristiano Ronaldo finds his groove, Portugal can be very dangerous.