The Portuguese Shortcoming

Its no secret that the Portuguese lack in the department of strikers.

Since the departure of the wonderful Pauleta, the Portuguese soft spot has been left exposed once again. Since the days of Luis Figo and Rui Costa, the Portuguese have depended on their midfielders to come up with the goals.

The last great striker to have come out of Portugal was Eusebio. And that was in 1960s. Since then the team has depended on below-par strikers to score goals.

Last night's match clearly showed that the Portuguese strikers were just not good enough. A lot of headers were missed and lot of good balls were of no use. Nuno Gomes did score a good goal, albeit with a huge deflection.

But the likes of Gomes and Postiga have never looked classy enough to match the likes of Miroslav Klose, Ruud van Nistelrooy or Alessandro Del Piero.

The team tends to miss a world class striker and their dependance on their midfielders tends to let them down.

In the match against the Germans, their dependence on Cristiano Ronaldo and Deco proved to be decisive, as the Germans effectively kept both at a safe distance from goal.

They severely missed a goal scorer like Pauleta. This is one department that the Portuguese U-19 coach must work upon. He must train and breed strikers from a very young age so that they can be useful to the senior squad at an older age.

Carlos Queiroz is largely credited with bringing up talents such as Figo when he was still playing for the Portuguese youth team. He is identified as the man who brought upon the Portuguese "golden generation".

Someone form the Portuguese FA must take a leaf out of his book and start searching for young striking talent, or else all these brilliant midfielders will be wasted without a good striker to complement them.

The only upcoming star in the striking department for Portugal has been Hugo Almeida. But he too has looked like a very amateurish player and nowhere close to the class of Pauleta.

This striker drought of the Portuguese makes them a very easy team to beat, even though they might have the best midfielders in the world.

If Portuguese football wishes to win trophies in the future they must find a striker who can score goals. Or else another generation of talented footballers will go trophy-less.