Euro 2020 – Portugal – Lithuania
The European champion Portugal hosts Lithuania at the Estadio Do Algarve in a match from Group B of the qualifiers for Euro 2020. Selecao already lost the fight with Ukraine for the first place in the group, but they still have to beat Serbia for the second. Right now Portugal are just one point ahead of the Serbian team.
In the previous round of the qualifiers Portugal had a crucial visit to Ukraine, which could have keep or kill their chances of winning the first place in the group. Well, Ukraine managed to win the group after a 2-1 win in Kiev, which was Portugal’s first loss in the group as well. Cristiano Ronaldo scored a penalty for Selecao in the 72th minute, but before this the hosts took a good lead with goals from Roman Yaremchuk and Andriy Yarmolenko.
Just like it was in Kiev, Portugal are still without their young star Joao Felix, who is still injured. Against Ukraine the manager Fernando Santos used Cristiano Ronaldo at the top of the attack, while Bernardo Silva and Goncalo Guedes were supporting him from the wings.
In the same day Serbia hosts Luxembourg in Belgrade and most likely they will win, so Portugal can’t make any mistakes in their game, too.
Lithuania should not cause any problems to the European champion. At this moment they are at the bottom of the group with just one point won so far. They have one draw and six losses, which is telling us that right now they are not at a level to cause an upset against a giant like Portugal.
That’s our conclusion here. The Portuguese team understands how important is to win this game and stay ahead of Serbia at second place. We have no doubts that Fernando Santos’ boys will do their job on Thursday and they will start thinking about their last fixture in Luxembourg on Sunday.