This text is a part of the Guardian’s Euro 2025 Consultants’ Community, a cooperation between among the finest media organisations from the 16 nations who certified. theguardian.com is operating previews from two groups every day within the run-up to the event kicking off on 2 July.
Overview
Portugal need extra. After that includes on the 2017 and 2022 European Championships, in addition to the 2023 World Cup, the “Navigators” assume that the time has come to do extra than simply collaborating. This time they wish to do one thing unprecedented for the ladies’s crew: to get out of the group and Switzerland, a rustic with a big Portuguese group, is a perfect place to make historical past.
The qualifying marketing campaign fuelled this sense of expectation. Portugal didn’t lose any of the ten video games they performed – six within the first section after which 4 extra in two playoff rounds towards Azerbaijan and the Czech Republic.
The latest Nations League marketing campaign was a wake-up name although and outdated doubts have resurfaced: are Portugal actually able to combat towards the strongest groups on the continent? After a promising begin, with a draw at house towards England and a win in Belgium, Francisco Neto’s crew endured 4 consecutive defeats – conceding 20 targets and scoring solely three – and ended up relegated to League B.
The outcomes additionally mirrored the absence of among the crew’s key figures: Kika Nazareth (Barcelona) sustained a severe harm in March; Lúcia Alves (Benfica) missed greater than half the season and Jéssica Silva (Gotham) had an eye fixed drawback. They’re all within the squad however there are query marks over how match-ready they are going to be.
“We aren’t within the cycle we wish to be, the place we need to be, and the place we have now labored to be,” Neto mentioned not too long ago. “There is no such thing as a different option to flip issues round than by means of onerous work and focus. It’s value remembering that not every thing is ok simply because we win and never every thing is fallacious after we lose. These are tough occasions for us because the crew have gotten us used to success.”
Now it’s as much as Neto to get the squad again on observe however the first task couldn’t be more durable: Spain in Berne on 3 July.
The coach
Francisco Neto is just 43 years outdated, however has been in his place for over a decade. Having began in 2014, when Portugal had been forty third within the Fifa rankings, he has overseen an increase to twenty second and historic appearances on the World Cup and two European Championships. He has performed a giant half on this enchancment, partly by means of his work as nationwide coach but additionally making certain that the game has grown as a complete, in shut collaboration with the golf equipment.
He has had a core of gamers on his journey however has by no means been afraid to herald youthful squad members, resulting in a relentless evolution of the group. He’ll all the time have his legacy however the newest outcomes point out that we could also be nearing the tip of a cycle. The European Championship will inform whether or not Neto remains to be the appropriate coach to take Portugal to new heights or whether or not it’s time for a shake-up. “The event of Portuguese ladies’s soccer is far more than the Nations League,” he mentioned earlier than the event.
Star participant
Kika Nazareth is the reference level in a brand new period of Portuguese ladies’s soccer. That is the brand new, extra skilled, extra aggressive and extra succesful period. Extra charming too. Now there are kids in Portugal who’re named after her – that’s the influence she is having. She is just not the primary Portuguese feminine participant to affix a high European membership – others have performed for Barcelona, in reality – however now the context is completely different, even in monetary phrases. Benfica obtained €500,000 for Nazareth, who instantly conquered Catalonia together with her footballing high quality but additionally her pleasure and smile. A severe harm in March threatened her place on the Euros however she made the squad and even the presence of a half-fit Nazareth will give the opposite gamers a lift. “However anticipate me: as a result of regardless of how lengthy the street, I’ll return,” she wrote on social media after the harm, quoting a poem by Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen.
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One to look at
Telma Encarnação. Born in Madeira, like Cristiano Ronaldo, she can also be obsessive about targets. Scored Portugal’s first purpose at a World Cup, towards Vietnam, in 2023. It took her some time to pluck up the braveness to go away her native island, however final summer season she moved to Sporting and scored 12 occasions. She’s solely 23 and remains to be establishing herself as the principle focus for the Portuguese assault. It seems as if she will likely be round for a while.
Possible lineup
Standing of home high flight
The outcomes of the nationwide crew replicate the evolution of the home competitions, helped alongside the best way by a growth technique launched by the previous FPF board, and supported by golf equipment. The variety of licensed gamers has tripled within the final decade, and is now shut to fifteen,000. In consequence the variety of groups and competitions/video games has grown, and younger gamers have circumstances that their older colleagues may solely have dreamed of. About 50% of the gamers within the high flight are professionals however it’s a very completely different image between the haves and the have-nots within the league. In March 2023 a brand new report for girls’s home soccer was set with 27,000 watching the Benfica v Sporting recreation. That was overwhelmed final season as Porto, who had solely fashioned their ladies’s crew in the beginning of the marketing campaign, attracted 31,000 followers to their first recreation. Additionally at Dragão, the nationwide crew had the help of 40,000 supporters towards Czech Republic within the qualifying playoff for the Euros.
Reasonable goal in Switzerland
To get previous the group stage for the primary time at a significant event.
The Portugal crew information was written by Nuno Travassos for A Bola.
