The Missing Team

Portugal has never lacked talented players.

Over the past two decades, we've grown accustomed to seeing Portuguese players at the world's biggest clubs. We've had Ballon d'Or winners, Champions League victors, European champions, and players who consistently contend for a spot among the planet's elite. Few national teams can boast such individual pedigree. Purely based on talent, Portugal enters any competition with a legitimate claim to win it.

The problem is that football is never solely about talent.

A team isn't formed by simply aggregating the best players. It emerges when those players stop looking like eleven individual stars and start embodying a shared vision. When each player elevates the other. When there's a clear enough playing philosophy to endure on days when individual brilliance isn't enough.

That's why I remain convinced that Portugal often had more players than a cohesive team.

This isn't destructive criticism; it's merely an observation.

It would be profoundly unfair to disregard this generation's achievements. They won a European Championship and two Nations League titles. They accustomed us to competing for any trophy against the world's top national teams. All of this will forever be etched in Portuguese football history.

However, titles don't preclude reflection.

Rarely have we seen a national team consistently impress with its style of play. There were, of course, great performances. There were memorable matches and moments of immense quality. But there were also too many games where the individual quality seemed to mask collective issues that never truly disappeared.

The World Cup once again highlighted this impression.

Portugal had solutions for almost every position, decisive players in Europe's biggest leagues, and resources any coach would covet. Yet, they rarely gave the impression of controlling games through their own identity. There was enough talent to dominate, but not always a team that dominated.

Perhaps it's unfair to demand this from a national team. Coaches work with players for only a few days a year. They don't build automatisms like a club coach. They don't choose reinforcements or sign specific profiles. They inherit a generation and try to make the most of it.

All of that is true.

But it's also true that some national teams, despite these limitations, manage to create a recognizable identity. They aren't remembered solely for their results, but for how they play.

That's why I liked the choice of Jorge Jesus.

Not because I believe there's a coach capable of solving everything.

Nor because I think a press conference can change a team's destiny.

I liked it because Jorge Jesus always struck me as a coach obsessed with a very simple idea: building teams that recognize themselves.

Throughout his career, he won a lot. He also lost a lot. He had extraordinary teams and others that were far less successful. His second stint at Benfica was a far cry from his first, and it would be absurd to pretend otherwise. Anyone who follows football knows his career path is far from a straight line.

But there's one characteristic he never lost.

His teams had identity.

We could prefer some over others. Disagree with choices, debate substitutions, question persistent selections, or criticize results. Debate was part of it. What we could hardly say was that those teams lacked a distinct mark. It only took a few minutes to understand what they aimed to do, where they wanted to win the ball back, how they occupied the pitch, and what kind of game they tried to impose on their opponents.

That's worth far more than we sometimes care to admit.

Today, football has evolved immensely. Coaches are better prepared, work with more information, understand the game better, and have extraordinary tools at their disposal. Knowledge has increased, and that has made football better.

But it has also made many teams more alike.

It's increasingly difficult to identify a coach's hand just by watching a game. Many teams play well. Few truly seem different. Few have an identity so strong it doesn't need an explanation.

Jorge Jesus always escaped this homogenization.

Not just in the teams he coached.

But also in how he lives football.

I was never particularly interested in the discussions about his gaffes or his communication style. I always felt that said far less about him than what happened on the pitch on Sundays.

What interests me is something else.

His teams reflected the coach's personality.

They had intensity because he believed in it.

They had courage because he demanded it.

They had flaws, naturally. They also inherited some of the coach's stubbornness. But they never felt like teams without a face.

That consistency always struck me as a rare quality.

On the field, there was an identity.

Off it, too.

It's precisely why I view his arrival at the national team with curiosity.

I don't expect miracles.

Nor do I believe Portugal will suddenly transform into the best team in the world.

Football doesn't work that way, and history teaches us to be wary of overly high expectations.

What I hope for is much simpler.

I'd like to recognize Portugal again by the football they play, not just by the quality of the players they field.

I'd like us to stop relying so often on the moment of individual inspiration and instead depend on a collective idea.

I'd like that after ten minutes, it would be clear what this team aims to be.

It's a demanding ambition.

But it seems like an ambition worthy of the players we have.

When Jorge Jesus's introductory press conference ended, I noticed something.

I wasn't thinking about who would be called up.

Nor about who would lose their spot.

I didn't even start building a starting eleven in my head, as often happens when a new national coach is appointed.

I was only thinking about one question.

How will Portugal play?

Perhaps that's the question we should have asked more often in recent years.

Because the players have always been there.

It's the team that still needs to be built.