The Portuguese newspaper underestimated Vietnam before the Women's World Cup
"It's easy to see the difficulties of Portugal in the first time participating in the Women's World Cup, when it has to be in the same group with the US and the Netherlands - the two teams that played the finals last term," author Francisco Martins wrote on Observador on February 22. "Portugal's task is not easy, but maybe we will not have to leave empty-handed, because in the second match, we will meet a team that is also participating in the tournament for the first time like Vietnam."
Observador is the 10th most visited newspaper in Portugal, according to Similarweb statistics in January 2023. Martins' article is more than 1,500 words, assessing the strength of Portugal's opponents in Group E of the 2023 Women's World Cup, including the US, the Netherlands and Vietnam.
"America just needs to breathe to win titles," Martins wrote. "Their players probably just have a hard time calling football soccer or football. When they have the ball at their feet, they always know what to do."
The US is number one in the women's soccer world, and has won the World Cup in four of the past eight. Portugal have met this opponent in three matches, losing 0-4, 0-3 and 0-1 respectively.
The Netherlands is a more familiar opponent to Portugal, having met in the group stage of Euro 2022. Without star Vivianne Miedema, the Netherlands still won 3-2 against Portugal at that time. This time Miedema broke the cruciate ligament of the knee and also missed the 2023 World Cup. "However, the Netherlands still has the best player in the world in 2017 Lieke Martens," Martins added.
The section about the Vietnamese women's team is shorter, in which Martins writes: "Like Portugal, Vietnam will attend the World Cup for the first time. They are ranked 34th in the world, so Portugal will have more opportunities to compete. scored against this opponent."
Vietnam ranked fifth in the 2022 Asian Cup, to win the last place to attend the World Cup. "Huynh Nhu - a player playing in Portugal - scored twice at that tournament", the article on Observador reads. "She is playing for Lank Vilaverdense and scoring six goals, helping the team to sixth in the Portuguese women's championship."
According to former coach Nuno Cristovao, Portugal also fell into the "very difficult" group. "Because Group E has the defending champion of the US and the runner-up of the Netherlands, and Portugal is participating in the tournament for the first time," Mr. Cristovao said without mentioning Vietnam.
The 2023 World Cup takes place from July 20 to August 20 in Australia and New Zealand, with 32 teams evenly divided into eight groups. In the group stage, the teams play in a round-robin round to calculate the points, select the two high-scoring teams to enter the 1/8 round. Portugal is the last team to win a place in Group E, after defeating Cameroon 2-1 in the match on February 22. According to the FIFA table in December 2022, the United States ranked number one, the Netherlands eight, Portugal 22 and Vietnam 34. Group E matches were all held in New Zealand, from July 22 to August 1.
