Before semi-final 1: Don't let Ronaldo and his teammates kick the ball...

Maybe Portugal will not have as much possession as Spain, but they have the most "hard-working" strikers at EURO 2012. This makes Vicente del Bosque and his team need to be wary...

According to statistics, since the tournament began, no player has surpassed Cristiano Ronaldo in the number of times he has threatened the opponent's goal. In the past 4 matches, the striker currently playing for Real Madrid has fired 29 shots, of which 14 were on target (accounting for nearly half of Portugal's total shots near the goal, 33 times), scored 3 goals and hit the woodwork 4 times. If luck had been on Ronaldo's side in those shots, it would be difficult for any player to catch up with him in the race for the "Golden Boot" title in this year's tournament.

Portugal has the most hard-working players at EURO 2012
- Photo: Getty

Not only possessing Ronaldo, Portugal also possesses another extremely dangerous attacking bow, Luis Nani. With abundant energy, skillful technique and lightning-fast running steps, this player currently playing for MU is a perfect pair with Ronaldo, creating 2 extremely destructive attacking spearheads for coach Paulo Bento's team. In the last 4 matches alone, Nani has also kicked 19 shots towards the opponent's goal, while half of Portugal's 76 crosses to the opponent's goal have come from his feet. This is the reason why Spain's Jordi Alba is "losing sleep" before the big match taking place next Wednesday.

Not only Ronaldo and Nani, Portugal also has extremely dangerous strikers, and especially very lucky in scoring against Spain, such as Helder Postiga or Hugo Almeida. Remember, in the friendly match 19 months ago between these two Iberian teams, Postiga was the striker who scored twice against Iker Casillas and Almeida also had time to join in the fun with a late goal (in the 90th minute) to join his teammates in creating a devastating 4-0 victory against the team that had just returned from South Africa with the World Cup title.

However, Portugal's weakness in past matches is ball control. On average, Bento's team only holds the ball about 46% per match, while Spain's figure is 61%. Moreover, the ability to make accurate passes of the "European Selecao" is much worse than that of "La Roja". In this year's tournament, they have only made 1,164 successful passes, while Vicente del Bosque's students have 2,616 (double). The reason Spain has such passing ability is thanks to technical masters such as Xavi (371 passes), Alonso (318), Busquets (300), Ramos (266), Alba (253) and Iniesta (240).

To limit Portugal's shots to the minimum, the only way is to let them touch the ball as little as possible. Therefore, if they can eliminate Portugal's ball possession time, half the victory is in Spain's hands, but if they can't, the possibility of them facing defeat is very high.

According to Thethaovanhoa.vn