At 2:45 today the Portuguese National Team (minus Cristiano Ronaldo) will square off against the Bosnians to defend their 1 goal aggregate advantage over the boys from the shores of the Adriatic. This is an interesting match because everyone on earth expects Portugal to be in the World Cup, but I think the Bosnians have other ideas.
Now, it’s not like the Portuguese don’t have other good players (they do) but we what the lack of Ronaldo has done to Real Madrid and it might do the same to Portugal. Recall that their management has already got into a heated dispute with Real Madrid over whether Ronaldo is actually hurt or not (forcing the Spanish club to produce x-rays and medical records as proof) and now that they don’t have him how do they expect to downplay the turmoil THEY created when he was hurt in a match playing for THEM?
At what point does this become a HUGE distraction? I think it already has and has let the Bosnians get their foot in the door. The only team that outright defeated Bosnia in Group play was Spain (and they’re the “Masters of the Soccer Universe” right now) so how does Portugal expect to beat these scrappy Eastern Europeans?
I say the Bosnians take it to the Portuguese early and often. There’s no way on Earth (in my opinion) that Portugal can come back from the absolute disaster that their team has been since Ronaldo’s injury. I’m taking Bosnia in this one (and not because my Pastor runs a missions organization in Bosnia, although that is kind of a cool story, huh?)
