European Football Championship 2021 / Portugal

This article covers the Portuguese national team at the Pan-European Football Championship 2021 . It is the eighth participation for the Portuguese team. Portugal, which has been a permanent guest at the European Championship finals since 1996, is taking part as defending champion for the first time, but had to qualify like the defending champions.

qualification

As Portugal qualified as one of the group winners of League A of the 2018/19 UEFA Nations League for the finals in June 2019 , the team only had to compete against four teams in the qualification . The Portuguese team was drawn to the Ukraine, Serbia, Lithuania and Luxembourg.

In total, national coach Fernando Santos , who led the team to their first title at the last European Championship, put on 26 players, only captain Cristiano Ronaldo , Rúben Dias , Bernardo Silva and goalkeeper Rui Patrício played all eight games. Raphaël Guerreiro had seven missions . Dyego Sousa had their first international appearance in the first qualifying game when he came on in the 73rd minute and Diogo Jota in the penultimate qualifying game. No other debutants were used. João Félix had made his debut in the finals of the UEFA Nations League and played in the next four qualifying games.

The top scorer with eleven goals - half of the Portuguese qualifying goals - was again Cristiano Ronaldo, who increased his total number of goals to 99 and was the second top scorer in the qualification together with Israeli Eran Zahavi . His first international goal was scored by Gonçalo Paciência who, two years after his first international match, scored the interim 4-0 in his second international match in a 6-0 win against Lithuania. A total of eight players scored 22 qualifying goals.

Portugal started the qualification with a goalless draw against Ukraine and only achieved a 1-1 draw in their second home game against Serbia. In June they won the 2018/19 UEFA Nations League . After that they won three qualifying games, but lost 2-1 in Ukraine on October 14th, which gave Ukraine the group victory and thus the direct qualification. Thanks to wins in the last two games, the Portuguese were able to qualify directly as second in the group. For the draw, however, it was only enough for pot 3, so tough opponents were to be expected.

Games

date	Venue	opponent	Result	Goal scorers
March 22, 2019	Lisbon	Ukraine	0-0
03/25/2019	Lisbon	Serbia	1: 1 (1: 1)	Dušan Tadić (7th / Elf), Danilo Pereira (42nd)
07.09.2019	Belgrade	Serbia	4: 2 (1: 0)	William Carvalho (42nd), Gonçalo Guedes (58th), Nikola Milenković (68th), Cristiano Ronaldo (80th), Aleksandar Mitrović (85th), Bernardo Silva (86th)
09/10/2019	Vilnius	Lithuania	5: 1 (1: 1)	Cristiano Ronaldo (7th / Elf, 62nd, 65th, 76th), Vytautas Andriuškevičius (28th), William Carvalho (90th + 2)
10/11/2019	Lisbon	Luxembourg	3: 0 (1: 0)	Bernardo Silva (16th), Cristiano Ronaldo (65th), Gonçalo Guedes (89th)
October 14, 2019	Kiev	Ukraine	1: 2 (0: 2)	Roman Yaremchuk (7th), Andrij Jarmolenko (26th), Cristiano Ronaldo (72nd / Elf)
11/14/2019	Faro / Loulé	Lithuania	6: 0 (2: 0)	Cristiano Ronaldo (7./Elfm., 22., 65.), Pizzi (52.), Gonçalo Paciência (56.), Bernardo Silva (63.)
11/17/2019	Luxembourg city	Luxembourg	2: 0 (1: 0)	Bruno Fernandes (39th), Cristiano Ronaldo (86th)

Closing table

Pl.	country	Sp.	S.	U	N	Gates	Diff.	Points
1.	Ukraine	8th	6th	2	0	017: 400	+13	20th
2.	Portugal	8th	5	2	1	022: 600	+16	17th
3.	Serbia	8th	4th	2	2	017:170	± 0	14th
4th	Luxembourg	8th	1	1	6th	007:160	−9	04th
5.	Lithuania	8th	0	1	7th	005:250	−20	01

preparation

Immediately before the finals, the Portuguese wanted to play against neighboring Spain on June 5, 2020 in Madrid . Due to the COVID-19 pandemic , the game and games against Belgium, Croatia and Slovenia planned for March and May 2020 were canceled.

Finals

For the finals, Portugal had initially applied to host games with the Estádio da Luz in Lisbon or the Estádio do Dragão in Porto , but then withdrew. At the draw, the Portuguese were drawn into the group with Germany and world champions France, which is the first time since 1992 that world champions and defending champions have been drawn into one group. A team was also drawn that still has to qualify in March 2020. There have been 18 games against Germany so far, only three of which have been won. In contrast, there are five draws and ten defeats. The last victory came at the EM 2000 in the last game of the group stage with 3-0. This was followed by four competitive defeats: 1: 3 in the game for third place at the 2006 World Cup, 2: 3 in the quarter-finals of the Euro 2008, 0: 1 in the group game at the Euro 2012 and 0: 4 in the first group game at the 2014 World Cup France is the record of 25 games negative. 18 defeats stand against a draw and six wins, but the last win brought the title at the last European Championship.

If the Portuguese team were group winners, they would play against the third in Group A, B or C in Bucharest - subject to the retention of the venues - and one day later in Dublin against the winner of Group D, e.g. B. England. If she was one of the top four thirds in the group, either the Group B winner with Belgium or the Group C winner with the Netherlands would be opponents in the round of 16, with her playing in Budapest or Bilbao .

Group games

Pl.	country	Sp.	S.	U	N	Gates	Diff.	Points
1.	Playoff winner A / D 1	0	0	0	0	000-000	± 0	00
2.	Portugal	0	0	0	0	000-000	± 0	00
3.	France	0	0	0	0	000-000	± 0	00
4th	Germany	0	0	0	0	000-000	± 0	00

June 15, 2021 at 6:00 p.m. in Budapest
Playoff winners A / D	-	Portugal	-: - (- :–)
June 19, 2021 at 6:00 p.m. in Munich
Portugal	-	Germany	-: - (- :–)
June 23, 2021 at 9:00 p.m. in Budapest
Portugal	-	France	-: - (- :–)

References and footnotes

¹If route A is won by Iceland, Bulgaria or Hungary, the winner of route A goes to group F and the winner of route D to group C. If route A is won by Romania, Romania goes to group C and the winner of route D goes to group F. (See: Playoffs EM 2021 qualification )

1. ↑ soccerway.com: Portugal

Web links

• uefa.com: Portugal