Portugal's position in world football is embarrassing, saying they are not the world's strongest teams and seems sorry for their luxurious squad; But to say that they are the world's strongest team, they do not have the corresponding background, and the second can not come up with the corresponding results. Take the World Cup, Germany, Italy, France these teams want to have champions, to have results and results, but what about Portugal? Until now, they've been eating Eusebio's Laodice. In the 1966 World Cup, Portugal finished third, which was their limit. Not to mention winning the championship, they can't even cross the threshold of the final.
Since the rise of the Golden Generation, Portugal's competitiveness has grown. After the new century, they have never missed a major tournament, including the World Cup and the European Championship. But since the new century, their best result in the World Cup is only fourth, not to mention the breakthrough, they have not even caught up with the record of their predecessors.
To be honest, with the current Portuguese squad, they are qualified to aspire to better results. Will Portugal make a breakthrough in this year's World Cup?
With more than three months to go until the start of the World Cup in Qatar, nothing can be decided. But there is one detail that you don't know if you noticed, and this detail may imply that Portugal does have a chance to create the best result in World Cup history.
The detail is that this year's World Cup, Portugal is the first time in history to participate as a seeded team.
It's hard to imagine, right? A strong team like Portugal has never been a seeded team before. In fact, Portugal has only been able to participate in the World Cup steadily in the past 20 years, so so far, they have only played 7 World Cups. In the 1966 World Cup, although Portugal reached the final four, they were second-tier teams when they drew the lottery; At the 1986 World Cup, Portugal competed for the second time, when it was listed as a fourth-pot team.
In the first five World Cups of the new century, Portugal still did not seed the team. In the 2002 World Cup, although Portugal was the strongest team in the group, it was unfortunate to draw with the host South Korea, and South Korea qualified as the seeded team with the status of host. In the 2006 World Cup, Portugal was in the group, and the seeded team was Mexico. In the 10-year World Cup, the seeding team was Brazil. In the World Cups of '14 and '18, the seeding teams were Germany and Spain respectively.
The rules vary from World Cup draw to draw, but Portugal has not been a seeded team. This can also be seen that their absolute strength in recent years has indeed not reached the top level.
It wasn't until this year's World Cup that Portugal finally experienced the feeling of a seeded team. The rule this time was to divide the tiers by world rankings, with Portugal ranking eighth at the time, but portugal happened to be excluded as Qatar automatically won a seeded team as host. Thanks to the careless loss of Sixth-place Italy to North Macedonia, Portugal was able to catch the last train of the seeded team.
Being a seeded team means that they can get a favorable position in the group, which also determines that they can avoid the top teams to the greatest extent. So this World Cup draw, like germany, Brazil, Spain such a strong team, will not come to Portugal (of course, this year Germany fell to the second gear, but they did not draw with Portugal). To be honest, although many people think that Uruguay, Ghana, south Korea are not easy to deal with, but this group is already quite good for Portugal, otherwise what? Try it for Serbia and Switzerland?
Will being a seeded team for the first time in history herald Portugal's ability to do some miracles? At that time, let's wait and see.