Today- Portugal vs Spain- No Fear, Just Excitement!

When you start the journey that is the World Cup, there's
always a sense of anxiety.

You try to focus on the two segments of the tournament:
there's the qualification aspect, which Team Portugal has
already achieved, and then there's the knockout phase, which
requires a winning mentality. The loser goes home and the
winner stays. We've reached that stage and we don't want to
go home.

As Team Portugal prepares for the match against Spain, we're
in a good space and a good frame of mind. The game plan is
on track. We haven't conceded a goal at the World Cup and if
we can maintain that discipline and sense of structure,
we're always in a position to compete.

I think our game against Spain is going to be a lot like a
boxing match. Each opponent is going to take a few punches
here and there to see how the other team adjusts and reacts.
That will determine the rhythm of the match and I think that
will be extremely important. These are two teams with
skilful players who will try to assess the opposition. The
teams who are able to identify and expose areas of weakness
and capitalize on their opponent's mistakes generally are
the teams that come out on top.

It's only natural that the history between these two nations
gives the match a bit more significance. After all, we are
neighbors’. It's also kind of ironic that the two counties
have combined efforts to bid for either the 2018 or 2022
World Cup and now we're in opposing positions where one of
us will go home.

Entering the knockout phase, there has been a greater
emphasis on penalty kicks in training. We divide the players
into three teams with each player taking three penalty
kicks, rotating at three different goals. I've taken the
opportunity to share my philosophy on defending penalty
kicks with Portugal's three goalkeepers. Ultimately, it's
their style and personality that should dictate how they
react to a shooter.

There are a number of things a goalkeeper can look for as
the opposing player prepares to shoot. Essentially, it's
psychological warfare between the shooter and goalkeeper.
When penalty kickers train, they try to master a routine:
they get a bag balls, put them down, place one ball down in
a particular way with the valve facing a certain way, they
take so many steps in their approach. What a goalkeeper can
try to do is interrupt that routine and there are various
ways to do that: taking their time to set up, walking up to
the ball, moving on the line, switching to a second pair of
gloves.

Then, you get into the technical aspects by looking at the
approach the shooter takes. If it's a normal approach to the
ball, then in most cases it's a normal swing from the
player. For example, if a right-footed shooter stands to the
left of the ball, then the natural swing would be the right
foot kicking to the right of the goalkeeper. If there's some
sort of deception used, like a long run to the ball or a
short arching one, they're likely to go against their
natural swing. Then, a goalkeeper can look at physical
aspects such as where the hips are facing. If the hips are
opened up to a certain side, then generally that's where the
ball is going. These things happen very quickly and it's
very difficult to process all this in a few
Split seconds.

Some players are getting craftier now. They have those
little hesitation run-ups to see if a goalkeeper moves. If
he does and the shooter is clever enough and skilled enough
to go to the other side, he has an advantage. If a
goalkeeper doesn't fall for it, the shooter will try going
to his strongest side.

And of course, we try to get a history on the opposing
players. Even during the match, you try to study the
tendencies of certain players. If a player has had several
shots on goal and tends to go to the same side, chances are
that's his favorite side in taking a penalty kick. Sometimes
during a warm-up before games, a potential penalty taker
wants to practice his penalties and we try to alert our team
to those types of situations.

All these may help prepare a goalkeeper, but I don't have
the perfect answer or solution. If I did, then you could
only imagine how valuable I would be to a team!

On Monday night before the match, we had a special guest
visit the Portugal team. Francois Pienaar, the former rugby
player who captained the Springboks when they won the 1995
Rugby World Cup in South Africa, spoke to the players. If
you've seen the movie Invictus with Matt Damon as Francois
and Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela, then you are familiar
with his story. The players watched an edited down version
of the movie and the highlight of the presentation was
having Francois there to give an incredible inspirational
message to the team.

Number one, he asked the players to imagine. He asked them
to imagine the support of the nation; to visualize those
young boys and girls who wear their jerseys with their names
on it to bed the night before in great anticipation to watch
them play.

Number two was no "ifs." Don't accept the word "if" like,
"What if I don't make the right pass? What if I don't make
the right tackle? What if I don't take the right shot?" He
told the team to remove that word from their language.
Instead use the word “if” I do this than there is a
positive outcome.

And the third point was positive energy. From the moment you
wake up, maintain positive energy because it's contagious.
Francois truly captivated our players and he left them with
one final message: Don't play with fear, but play with
excitement.


Live the World Cup!