Guaranteeing that they will finish their group at the top, Portugal already know that they will face the 3rd placed team in the round of 16. Based on the 15 possible pairings provided by UEFA for the tournament, the national team will face an opponent from one of three groups: A, B or C. If the group stage ends with the same classification as at the end of the first two rounds, the top four third-placed teams will be from Groups B, C, D and E. With 1 point, like Scotland and the Czech Republic, Albania will have an advantage on tiebreaker thanks to a better goal difference than the Scots and more goals scored than the Czechs. In today’s scenario, Portugal will face Slovenia (3rd place in Group C after Denmark, which is 2nd in the discipline ranking). This game is scheduled for Frankfurt, July 1, at 20:00 (Portuguese time).
Martinez admits he’s running, but refuses to ‘make a revolution’
With first place in the group and a guaranteed place in the round of 16, Roberto Martinez admits he made changes to the team against Georgia. “I’m not going to make a revolution. Rotation? Yes, many players deserve to be in the 11. For me, it is very difficult to use 23 players out of 10 plus the goalkeeper on the field. But this is not a revolution, I don’t understand. I don’t like that word,” the coach said, emphasizing the fact that the team scored first. “We always want to improve. Games become different when we score the first goal,” he stressed. “We focused very well,” he said.