Gibraltar team loses valiantly to European Champions Portugal

TRAVELLING without Lee Casciaro and Jake Gosling the Gibraltar team arrived in Portugal for their friendly match against the European Champions on September 1 although many were disappointed that Ronaldo had withdrawn from the Portuguese squad due to injury although perhaps it was convenient that he would not be seen to taking part in a match against a team that the Spanish had tried so hard to block from membership of both UEFA and FIFA.

Although miracles do occur once in a blue moon, realistically, it wasn’t a matter of who would win, but of how many goals Portugal would score and to the credit of the Gibraltar side, whilst outplayed, they kept the score to 1-0 at half time with the irrepressible Nani picking up a ricochet and finding the back of the net.

There was no question that Portugal was the better side but Gibraltar whilst conceding ground, did their best to defend and even had the odd chance of scoring themselves although as the game progressed so they tired and with a further goal from Nani and three more from Cancelo, Silva and Pepe, the final score was 5-0 to the home team.

To some extent, this was a good run out for the squad in preparation for their World Cup ‘home’ match against Greece on Tuesday September 6, although the Greek team may face expulsion from the group due to the intervention of the Greek government in postponing the start of the Greek league season which is in direct conflict with FIFA statutes.