Search icon

Football

02nd Jul 2017

You may have missed Portugal’s agonisingly awful free kick routine

Worst. Routine. Ever.

Ben Kiely

Portugal’s victory on Sunday proves that they are the third best team in… well, not the world.

What’s the point of the Confederations Cup again? Until we get an answer we’ll just say that Portugal beating Mexico in the third-place play-off proves they are the third best team in the 2017 Confederations Cup.

The Euro 2016 champions went behind in the 54th minute thanks to an own-goal by Luis Neto. An 11th-hour equaliser from Pepe forced the game to extra time where Silva provided the winner from the penalty spot.

If you were too transfixed by Colm Cooper’s shirt to even realise that the world’s biggest least interesting international soccer tournament was even happening, we can confirm that the battle for third place was as exciting as you would expect it to be.

There was one moment in particular that made everyone watching miss Cristiano Ronaldo’s presence even more. That came just before the end of the game when Portugal were awarded a free kick on the edge of the box.

Ricardo Quaresma stood over the ball, but William Carvalho ran in to get the first touch. He attempted a delicate back-heel that, ideally, would have set up Quaresma for a thunderbastard.

Or maybe that’s what they wanted us to think?

The ball barely moved and instead of rifling it towards goal, Quaresma dummied and passed it back to Carvalho. Under pressure from two Mexican players, Carvalho finished the move by playing the ball straight out for a throw-in.