Portugal’s U20s side secured third spot in the Toulon Tournament with a penalty shootout win over the Czech republic.
Portugal looked arguably the stronger side initially, and they were certainly looking the more dangerous. It was the Czech Republic who opened the scoring though, with promising young superstar Matej Pulkrab scoring an incredibly well taken goal.
Goal #Pulkrab 33′ #PorCze 0-1 #Toulon2016 @FCSlovanLiberec @slovanliberec #SlovanLiberec @Phulky @johnrodercomm pic.twitter.com/e1A8DRKER3
— Romain Collet-Gaudin (@RomainCG75) May 29, 2016
The defenders were drawn away by the runs of his teammates, with Pulkrab driving into the box. He slotted the ball perfectly into the far corner, with the keeper given no chance.
They weren’t in the lead for long though, with Portugal hitting straight back. After working hard to get the lead, the Czech Republic threw it away with some poor defending.
Andre Silva was on the end of a superb cross, with the ball placed perfectly between the defence and the goalkeeper. The defending was admittedly pretty static though, and the Portuguese forward was able to head in relatively unchallenged. It remained that way for the rest of the game, although both sides had chances to score.
The Czech side had a goal correctly disallowed for offside, while Portugal were furious when they weren’t given a penalty or free-kick on the edge of the box. They felt the Czech keeper should have seen red for one challenge where he completely missed the ball, but the referee made it very clear he felt the Portuguese star had dived.
In the end it went to penalties and the Czech Republic collapsed a little. There were a number of decent saves from Manchester United’s young keeper Joel Pereira, but in all honesty they were pretty poor penalties.
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The Man United man ended up scoring the winning penalty too, securing a 4-2 shootout win and clinching third place in the tournament.