Last night, Portugal qualified for the quarter-finals of Euro 2024 after a very complicated match against Slovenia. Among the rare satisfactions on the Portuguese side, we could certainly bring out Vitinha. However, he was the first to have left the Frankfurt pitch badly battered, after an hour of play. And that was perhaps the problem. Well, according to Roberto Martinez. Because after the match, the Spanish coach tried to give a very strange explanation for the Parisian midfielder’s exit…
« The state of the pitch motivated my decision. It didn’t help us when we had the ball, I wouldn’t say it was good for Slovenia and bad for Portugal, but we suffered with the ball. The inside game with Vitinha couldn’t work, the passing lines in the inside game favoured Slovenia. (…) I had to replace Vitinha, because we couldn’t use the patterns we had in the inside game, so I tried to take a risk with attacking players, as was the case with Diogo Jota. »
Don’t worry, we didn’t get it either. But you have to understand, it’s easier to take out Viti than to take out Bruno Fernandes or Bernardo Silva, even if it means being eliminated by Slovenia…
Asked about his coach’s decisionJohn Palhinha, who was the author of a very great matchpreferred to keep a low profile: ” Vitinha is a maestro. He leads our team when we have the ball, and it shows when he is not there. But it is the coach’s choice, we must respect his decisions. He knows better than anyone what to do. »
