The memes about Mexico's World Cup round-16 have been said to be rotten. Mexico's seven consecutive World Cups have stopped in the round of 16, which can be interpreted from both positive and negative. On the positive side, this at least proves that Mexico has not lost in the group stages of these 7 World Cups, and has the stability of a strong team. But on the negative side, Mexico pulled its crotch as soon as they reached the knockout round, indicating that their competitiveness is indeed limited, giving people a feeling that this is the case.
In fact, Mexico is hardly the world's top team, just look at their quarter-final opponents in these 7 World Cups, and they are indeed a bit worse than the real strong teams. If the loss to Bulgaria and the United States was an accident, then Germany, Argentina, the Netherlands, Brazil, there is no doubt that the strength is above them.
So, if Mexico is called the World Cup Sixteen Lang, then this title is really a bit mocking.
However, in recent years, there has been a strong team in European football, and this trend has also emerged. And it's not just the World Cup, they've continued that in other major competitions.
Don't sell it, this team is Portugal.
Portugal's position in European football is actually not up and down, saying that they are the top strong team, it seems to be a little worse; But to say they are a second-rate team is to wronged them. It can only be said that they are the lower team of the first-class strong team. In terms of strength, they are inferior to Germany, France, Spain. In European football, that is, the level of five or six. This also roughly coincides with their world rankings (the world rankings are also added to Brazil and Argentina).
So this positioning is reflected in the competition, which has caused a phenomenon - in every competition, Portugal is not the biggest favorite to win the championship, and even the top five are not ranked. But at the same time, they at least have the strength to win the championship, so this possibility is still there.
Therefore, at the 2016 European Championship, Portugal won the championship, which can only be said to be relatively unexpected, but it is not a miracle like Greek mythology or Danish fairy tales.
But it was after this European Championship that Portugal began to move closer to the Mexican model in the world cup and the European Championship.
At the 2018 World Cup, Portugal advanced to the round of sixteen as second in the group, but they lost to Uruguay in the quarter-finals. At Euro 2021, Portugal advanced to the round of sixteen as the third in the group, this ranking should be familiar to them, right? Then in the round of sixteen, they lost to Belgium.
In two consecutive competitions, Portugal has stopped in the top sixteen, although the scale of the sixteenth round of the 7 consecutive World Cups in Mexico is not a volume, but at least it can reflect some problems. Portugal actually gives people a feeling that bottlenecks have begun to appear in the competition, and the ceiling is not high.
To be honest, on paper strength, Portugal in the 18-year World Cup and 21-year European Championship is stronger than Portugal, which won the Euro 2016 Championship. However, in terms of combat effectiveness and on-the-spot play, it is diametrically opposed. Today, Portugal's main squad is full of a large number of Premier League players, but B seats, Ruben Dias, Canceló and others are from Manchester City, Manchester City is not a very tough team, often showing weakness in key games, so today's Portugal, on the hardness is not as good as it was then. Pepe can still appear in the main squad at the age of 39, in addition to portugal has no suitable replacement, the biggest reason is that Pepe can provide some rigid elements for this soft Portuguese team.
In fact, Mexico also has this problem, their technology is no problem, the overall coordination is no problem, but the player's physical confrontation ability can not be compared with those teams with excellent physical fitness. Not to mention the first-class strong teams, even second-rate teams like Sweden can eat Mexico raw by their bodies. In the 2018 World Cup group stage, Mexico lost 0:3 to Sweden, and this score reflects not the strength gap between the two sides, but the restraint in style.
Why is it that this year's World Cup, many people expressed a certain degree of concern about Portugal's group qualification prospects? In fact, in terms of strength, Portugal is definitely the strongest in this group, but it is precisely because the other three opponents are very tough and can pose a certain threat to Portugal, so there will be so many voices of concern. If Germany or Spain were in this group, the voices of concern would certainly be much smaller.
For Portugal, even if the group advances, then the round of sixteen is not easy. Even if they avoid Brazil, they will most likely encounter Switzerland or Serbia. Serbia is the team that squeezed them into the play-offs in the World Preliminary Round, while Switzerland, although it lost 4-0 to Portugal away from home in the Europa League, but won 1:0 at home, and the World Cup is not the European League, Switzerland's fighting ability is certainly very different.
I still hope that Portugal can stop this decline in time and break through the bottleneck of the top sixteen. Although this trend has only lasted for two major competitions so far, it is enough to wake up Portugal, after all, they should not be.