Portugal Right to Trust Fernando Santos at Difficult Moment

With their Euro 2016 qualification campaign getting off to the worst possible start, Portugal have turned to Fernando Santos in a bid to book a sixth straight trip to the European Championship, according to Goal.com.

Given the 59-year-old’s eight-match touchline ban—incurred while in charge of Greece at the 2014 World Cup—the Portuguese Football Federation has decided that even a partially available manager of Santos’ pedigree and philosophy is an improvement on the departed Paulo Bento, under whose leadership the Seleccao showed signs of going stale.

It’s hard to argue with their thinking.

By the time Bento’s final Portugal side lost 1-0 at home to Albania on September 7, the template had become so familiar as to be dangerously predictable.

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The team that beat Bosnia-Herzegovina in a Euro 2012 play-off nearly three years ago, for example, was identical to the one that opened the World Cup last June, but for Hugo Almeida replacing Helder Postiga up top.

Granted, the pipeline of young, top-level Portuguese prospects isn’t flowing all that regularly these days, and it’s not only down to Bento that the players who so impressed at the FIFA U20 World Cup in Turkey 15 months ago have yet to make an impact in the senior squad (Galatasaray’s Bruma, for one, spent much of last season recovering from a serious knee injury).

In other words, even Santos won’t have meaningful flexibility when it comes to picking his first Seleccao next week ahead of matches against France and Denmark. But the former Porto, Sporting and Benfica boss will bring a set of intangibles to the process that defined his Greece teams in consecutive tournaments.

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At Euro 2012 the Ethniki gutted out an impressive 1-0 win over a favoured Russia side and proceeded to give Germany a scare in the quarter-finals. In Brazil they overcame a heavy loss to Colombia and progressed to the round of 16 after a last-minute win over Ivory Coast.

That match, which set up the showdown with Costa Rica in which Santos was sent to the stands, typified Greece under Santos—an organised, tactically astute and passionate outfit capable of playing to a level beyond the sum of its parts.

And while they were contesting penalties in the round of 16, a meek and messy Portugal team was already heading home following a group-stage exit.

"

Official: Fernando Santos appointed as new Portugal manager. Good choice. Greece were good under him, but style too defensive.

— Sergi Domínguez (@FutbolSergi) September 23, 2014"

Ahead of Euro 2012 Santos spoke to Jamie Rainbow of World Soccer, and his comments—even when transplanted into a current context—still ring true.

“We will bleed to succeed,” he said, adding, “I want [fans] to say that Santos’ national team is a compact group with a clear identity in the game.”

In light of their recent troubles, Portugal will surely welcome such an approach over the next few years.