The Most Flavorless National Team in History

Praça do Comércio, in the heart of Lisbon, emptied in a flash. The exodus began with Spain's goal and accelerated after the final whistle. Portugal crashes out of the World Cup in the Round of 16.

How strange… Among thousands of people, no one protested, no one insulted the coach or the players, no one demanded we reclaim Olivença to save our honor… Not even a chorus of boos to mask the disappointment. Nothing! On the packed bus I boarded, conversations were mundane. It almost felt like being in another dimension. I felt like shouting: do you even realize Portugal lost?

I said nothing because I then realized I was experiencing the strangest and most painless defeat of the National Team myself. Even during the match, the atmosphere ranged from lukewarm to cold. No one was surprised by Spain's goal. No one found it unfair. All the flaws were on full display. After all, nothing was learned, nothing changed. And there wasn't even any suffering… The writing was on the wall since the match against DR Congo. This was, as far as I can remember – and I'm old enough to remember a lot – the competition where a Portuguese national team least inspired its fans. And vice-versa.

Another missed opportunity. Did we lack a driver with the finesse for this Ferrari? Or have we all been deluded, and in reality, we're just a utility vehicle? Perhaps somewhere in the middle, a top-of-the-range model with swapped and poorly assembled parts.

When I look at this team, I see a Hamlet in football boots. In Shakespeare's genius, Hamlet isn't limited by circumstances or lack of ability. But he thinks too much, hesitates too much, and waits too long. While he decides, time passes. While he ponders, others act. When he finally moves, the ideal moment has already vanished.

Some teams lose because they are inferior. Some teams lose because the opponent had a better day, had a stroke of luck, excelled in the details. And then there are teams that lose because, despite having the players, quality, and experience to contend for history, they enter big games as if waiting for permission to be great. Or waiting to figure out how to reproduce that greatness on the field.

Hamlet's tragedy isn't dying. Hamlet's tragedy is the reader spending the entire play convinced he could have been so much more than he was. Perhaps that's the feeling that lingers when looking at certain golden generations of Portuguese football, especially this one: not the pain of defeat, but the melancholy of a lost possibility.

Football forgives a lack of talent, but it doesn't forgive a lack of ideas, hesitation, a lack of audacity and desire. It doesn't help those who don't know where they're going. It doesn't help those who either don't see themselves as great or don't know what to do with their greatness.

Martínez was a failed shot. He ends up talking about things no one saw. Wanting to write a legacy that doesn't exist. That he doesn't leave behind. Let Jorge Jesus come. An idea I initially found strange, I always saw him as a training, game, locker room, day-to-day animal with the players. It's possible he'll stir up a controversy or two, get involved where he's not called, even fall out with a player or two. He'll have epiphanies only he sees… But he's a coach. And he has ideas. And he doesn't ask for permission to implement them. Portugal will have an idea and will play football. I'm not saying they'll play twice or three times better, because twice zero… is still zero. We might even fail again. But we'll fail trying, not being Hamlet: “To be or not to be… That is the question.”