In stoppage time against Uruguay in the round of 16 of the 2018 World Cup, Cristiano Ronaldo was irate.
So nervous that a backlash against the game’s referee earned him a yellow card. He was his second in the tournament. If Portugal passed, he would not play the quarterfinals.
No Portuguese played.
With two goals from Cavani, the South American team dispatched the European team with a 2-1 victory, on a day of historic farewells.
Hours before the clash, Lionel Messi’s Argentina had also said goodbye to the competition, surpassed by France.
The two stars who have polarized football’s attention over the last decade left the World Cup in Russia virtually together.
This Monday (28), at least one of them will be able to seek revenge. The Lusail stadium, in Qatar, will be the stage for another meeting between the Portuguese and Uruguayans, at 4 pm (BrasÃlia time).
Leaders of Group H after the victory over Ghana in the debut, the Europeans can forward the classification to the round of 16 and still complicate the situation of the opponent, who drew without goals with South Korea.
It will be the second meeting between the nations in a World Cup. Since the first one, in Russia, the casts have gone through profound changes.
Of the 26 players taken by Fernando Santos to Qatar, only ten were with the selection on Russian soil. Ruà PatrÃcio, Pepe, Raphael Guerreiro, William Carvalho, João Mário, Bernardo Silva and Cristiano Ronaldo were starters in the tournament, while Rúben Dias, Bruno Fernandes and André Silva were bench options.
In the current squad, the quartet Cristiano Ronaldo, Rúben Dias, Bruno Fernandes and Bernardo Silva are the only ones with a captive place among the 11 that start playing.
Despite the advanced age of its captain (37 years old), the Portuguese squad taken to Qatar is seen with more quality and ability to fight for the title than the one in 2018.
They managed to show this in their debut, beating Ghana by 3-2. The good collective performance was important to show the unity of the group, despite the controversies involving the biggest star of the team.
On the eve of the World Cup, Cristiano Ronaldo left Manchester United after harshly criticizing the club.
There was a fear that this could contaminate the Portuguese cast. Bruno Fernandes and Diogo Dalot were Cristiano Ronaldo’s teammates in the English team.
The answer came with hugs after each of the Portuguese goals in the Cup.
In Uruguay, although there are 12 remaining players from the last Cup, including forwards Suárez and Cavani – the latter is currently a substitute–, the main change since the last tournament is not on the field, but on the sidelines.
After 15 years, coach Óscar Tabárez was fired during the cycle for the Qatar Cup due to the risk that Uruguay ran of being out of the World Cup. The team had an uneven start in the Qualifiers.
In place of the long-lived coach, Diego Alonso took over, who, in the view of coach Fernando Santos, maintained the same DNA as the team. “The current team has many values. The game matrix has not changed much”, pointed out the Portuguese.
Although the spirit of the team is the same, some changes brought the renewal that Uruguay needed. Names like Valverde (Real Madrid) and Darwin Núñez (Liverpool) breathed new life into the team.
The exchanges in both teams make Diego Alonso reject comparisons with the 2018 duel.
“It’s a different story from four years ago. The players are different and so are the circumstances. All this will lead to the game having different dynamics and even a different result”, he said.
The new plot should define the future of both countries on Qatari soil.
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