Portugal’s Euro Final Win Will Make a Great Sports Movie

When Cristiano Ronaldo went down with a knee injury early in the Euro Final, I thought that would clinch the game for France.  It was a question of how many goals they would score.  2-0?  3-0, like the 1998 World Cup Final that took place on that very same field?

Then some weird things happened.  First, it seemed that France felt bad for Portugal, because they took their foot off of the accelerator.  Their offense just passed aimlessly for a while.

Then, once they started shooting again, Portuguese goalkeeper Rui Patricio turned into a combination of Spider-Man and Inspector Gadget.  He turned into a puzzle that the French simply could not solve.  Patricio made save after save, several of which were in the difficult or amazing category.

Portugal also started to mount some great scoring chances in the second half, but French goalkeeper and captain Hugo Lloris kept them out as well.  He didn’t have to make as many difficult saves as Patricio, but his skill was tested, nonetheless.

As extra time began, my main thought was, “How in the heck has France not beaten them yet?  They have a better team on the field!”  But time after time, Patricio kept the shots out.

Between the halves of extra time, French manager Didier Deschamps gave a fiery speech to rally his team.[1]  I thought that France was going to win at this point FOR SURE.

But they didn’t.  Two minutes into the second half of extra time, English referee Mark Clattenburg incorrectly penalized France’s Laurent Koscielny – and gave him a yellow card – for a handball just outside the penalty area.  The problem was – it didn’t hit Koscielny’s hand, but actually hit the hand of Portuguese substitute Éder, who had just entered the game.  Now, I’ve refereed for years, so I don’t want to be too critical, but I couldn’t believe that he thought Éder’s hand was Koscielny’s, especially when you look at photos of Éder and Koscielny.

But anyway… Raphaël Guerreiro took the free kick for Portugal and clanged it off the crossbar.  France couldn’t clear the ball, as their clearance attempt was taken at midfield by Portuguese midfielder João Moutinho.  He then passed the ball to Éder, who took a venomous shot from 25 yards that zipped past Lloris for the only goal of the game.[2]

It just wasn’t France’s day.  But, that’s not to take away from Portugal.  They rallied around their wounded leader and just would not lose.  It was one of the grittiest, most determined performances I have ever seen from a team that – on paper – was severely overmatched, especially after losing their super-duper-megastar.

Congratulations go to Portugal.  I’m looking forward to seeing the movie that will be made about this game.  In fact, let’s play a game here.  Put any title ideas that you have for the movie in the comments section for this post, and once again, congrats to Portugal.

[1] It looked like he was cracking the whip BIG TIME.  We’re talking Herb Brooks before the Miracle on Ice game level, here.

[2] I can’t believe a bigger deal isn’t being made out of this.  Clattenburg’s call was TERRIBLE, and if he makes that call correctly, would Portugal have scored right there?  We don’t know.  We also don’t know that Portugal wouldn’t have scored later.  But, things would have been different.  I’m not blaming Clattenburg for the loss, please understand – I’m just asking some questions here.