In the final, Portugal started defensively, hoping to find goals from ronaldo’s blistering counter-attacks. That plan fell flat on its head as Ronaldo limped off injured...
The Portuguese have always been skillful navigators. In the olden times, they used to endure choppy waters of the oceans and rough weather changes in the continents in their quest to reach their marked destinations. For instance, the first European to reach India by sea was the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama. Until recently, he had been the most famous Portuguese national in India. Now he no longer occupies that crown. Cristiano Ronaldo has that honour.
In football, though, the shape is a bit too round for the Portuguese to navigate with their customary endurance. There were some great players in their squad, notably Eusebio in the 1950s and 1960s and Luis Figo in the 1990s and 2000s. In spite of having such great players, they had never won anything in the global football stages. Even the emergence of Cristiano Ronaldo in the 2000s had not changed the trend. In football, the Portuguese had never reached shores of triumph; they just meandered in the deep seas of soccer despair.
And then the Euro 2016 happened.
EURO 2016 AND THE 12-YEAR JINX
Not many seem to be aware of 12-year jinx in the Euro Cup. The tournament was started in 1960s as a four-team affair. It was in the 1980s that it began to emerge as a top football tournament of the planet. The traditional football powerhouses of Europe – Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and France – used to dominate the Euro tournaments. The first time a rank outsider won it was in 1992. Perhaps, it may be the result of the fall of the Berlin Wall or the horrors of the Balkan War. Nobody knows. But Denmark won the cup. In fact, they had not even qualified for the tournament. They came in only because Yugoslavia were disqualified following the Balkan War. They came straight from a vacation on the beach. They played a merry brand of football and won the tournament in the coolest possible manner.
This story is from the August 2016 edition of Sports Plus.
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This story is from the August 2016 edition of Sports Plus.
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