June 21 (Reuters) – Portugal had \u2060plenty of the ball in their World Cup opener but little bite and Roberto \u2060Martinez’s side return to Houston on Tuesday needing a sharper attacking display against Uzbekistan \u200cafter a frustrating 1-1 draw with Democratic Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n
The numbers told a familiar cautionary tale. According to Opta, Portugal completed 783 passes against the Africans, fewer only than Spain’s 800, and topped the possession chart with 75%. <\/p>\n
Yet all that \u200bcontrol produced seven shots and only one on target \u2014 Joao \u2060Neves’s sixth-minute header.<\/p>\n
For a team carrying \u2060high expectations around Cristiano Ronaldo and an array of attacking options, the struggle came not in circulation \u2060of \u200cthe ball but in the final third, where creativity, decision-making and finishing deserted them.<\/p>\n
Portugal’s shot count was among the lowest of the opening round, with only five of the \u206048 teams managing fewer, while Spain, despite being held 0-0 by \u200bCape Verde, attempted 27 shots.<\/p>\n
Martinez \u200cwill hope for a more ruthless display against an Uzbekistan side beaten 3-1 by \u2060Colombia in their \u200bfirst-ever World Cup match, a debut marked by nerves and caution.<\/p>\n
Uzbekistan coach Fabio Cannavaro said the occasion weighed heavily on his players.<\/p>\n
“I told them they were too nervous. That’s why, in the end, they focused so \u2060much on defending,” he said.<\/p>\n
The Italian, winner of the 2006 \u200bBallon d’Or, believes the pressure of their World Cup bow has now passed and pointed to Uzbekistan’s second-half chances against Colombia as evidence they can trouble Portugal.<\/p>\n
“We have plenty of quality to be a \u2060top Asian team, but of course we have to grow,” he added.<\/p>\n
Portugal trained in Palm Beach on Sunday, with Benfica centre-back Tomas Araujo again working separately as he continues specific recovery work after starting against DR Congo.<\/p>\n
Cristiano Ronaldo, who played the full match in the opener and came in for \u200bcriticism, remains central to Portugal’s story at 41.<\/p>\n
“Cristiano is an example \u2060because of his career, because of the hunger he still has at his age,” winger Francisco Conceicao \u200bsaid. “For us and for the new generation, he’s a role \u200cmodel.”<\/p>\n
For Portugal, though, inspiration alone will not be \u200benough. Against Uzbekistan, Ronaldo must step up and do what is expected of him as the target man in his team’s attack.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Fernando Kallas, Editing by Ken Ferris)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"June 21 (Reuters) – Portugal had \u2060plenty of the ball in their World Cup opener but little bite…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":751619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,13201,596,85,21418],"class_list":["post-751618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fifa","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=751618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/751619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=751618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=751618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=751618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}