Scolari is a sh1t coach and anyone who thinks otherwise is deluded. Portugal under his tenture were massively over-rated.
They've only once come back from a deficit in a major tournament under him (England in Euro 2004) but that was only a 1-0 lead and against a tactically inept team just absolutely asking to lose their lead, with the backing of a big home crowd.
Then they are down by two goals and he still doesn't have the balls to play two strikers?
Portugal can't complain about the clear cut chances missed by Moutinho and Pepe when they only ever play one natural striker (if that). They've possessed much more goalscoring strength up front since the '90s when they could be justified to play one up front, yet Scolari's still felt compelled to not partner Pauleta with Nuno Gomes in Euro 2004 and WC 2006, and Hugo Almeida (having scored 11 in 23 games with Werder Bremen this season) with Nuno Gomes in this tournament. Yet hardly anyone makes mention of it.
People these days get too impressed by technique alone and think it automatically means beautiful, awesome attacking football. The preference for a Petit or Costinha, when Maniche/Moutinho and Deco were already reasonably capable of holding the midfield themselves in the past four years, is depressing and regressive, only flattered by the poor tournaments of 2004 and 2006.
Nor can they complain too much about Ferreira being pushed for Ballack's goal. He's looked sh1t all tournament and been lucky to again be a starter. He let Schweinsteiger badly get in front of him for the first goal too. The poor set-piece defending has been a trademark of Scolari's reign: Lampard's equaliser in the 2004 quarter-final, Charasteas' winner in the final, Fonseca's goal in the Mexico group game in 2006, Sionko's in the Czechia game this year and now two today. Very static defending and poor decision making from Ricardo in all of them. Strange that it's never been improved upon with four years work.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
