The Portuguese football team started on Tuesday to prepare for the game against South Korea, the last game in Group H of the 2022 World Cup, without the presence of Uruguay holders, Rafael Guerreiro and injured.
The day after the triumph over Uruguay (2:0), with which they “stamped” the passage to the 1/8 finals, the hosts had only 12 players on the lawn of the Al-Shahaniya training center, in the first 15 minutes. open to journalists.
The starters in the match against the South Americans and Rafael Guerreiro limited themselves to recovery work, while Nuno Mendez, who started the match, was injured at the end of the first half and had to be replaced by the Borussia Dortmund striker.
In addition to Mendes, the list of unavailable players also includes Otavio and Danilo Pereira, who are also injured, so that in these conditions, manager Fernando Santos was left with only eight players not used against the Uruguayans and four who entered the field. stems from the second half (Rafael Leao, Paligna, Matheus Nunez and Gonzalo Ramos).
During the training period open to journalists, all of them trained without any obvious restrictions, performing exercises with the ball.
On Monday, Portugal beat Uruguay 2-0 with two goals from Bruno Fernandez to advance to the round of 16, taking the lead in Group H with six points, ahead of Ghana, who have three points each, while Uruguayans and South Korea both Available.
The Portuguese team will face the South Koreans on Friday, in the third and final round of the group stage, in a game scheduled at Doha’s Education City Stadium from 18:00 local time (15:00 in Lisbon).