In the penultimate test match shortly before the European Championship, a 0-0 win against Spain, the Portuguese João Palhinha received a decent lesson.
National coach Fernando Santos instructed the defensive midfielder that he shouldn't play the way he did at his club, Sporting Lisbon: The Seleção system is different, he doesn't have three central defenders behind him and he has to adapt to that.
Thomas Klemm
Editor in the "Money & More" section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
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Palhinha slept about it one night, went to Santos the next day and claimed he understood now.
The national coach told this anecdote the day after the 2-2 draw against France.
In the game that secured the Portuguese the round of 16 against Belgium this Sunday (9 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the European Football Championship as well as on ARD and MagentaTV), Palhinha, who was substituted in for the second half, did as he was told and also found Renato Sanches another almost congenial partner.
Late satisfaction
Now the two are forming a new power plant in the middle of the field;
the previous one was shut down in the 4-2 draw against Germany and was replaced by Santos.
Sanches had already been substituted for the DFB team and had not only shown his energy when hitting the post.
For the Portuguese media, Palhinha and Santos are the men who are supposed to ensure force and order against Kevin De Bruyne and the rest of Belgium.
The roles are as follows: The 25-year-old Palhinha is supposed to play Arnold (Schwarzenegger) as the “six”, the two years older Sanches as the “ten” the Sylvester (Stallone).
For the latter, this means belated satisfaction.
Highly praised at a young age, honored as the best young player at the 2016 European Championship and signed by FC Bayern for 35 million euros, Sanches hardly played a role at the German record champions.
Things have gone uphill since he moved to Lille OSC in 2019, where he recently even became French champion.
Now Sanches is a man who teaches fear with Palhinha.