{"id":1072,"date":"2014-06-23T22:17:27","date_gmt":"2014-06-23T20:17:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/?p=1072"},"modified":"2014-06-23T22:31:14","modified_gmt":"2014-06-23T20:31:14","slug":"portuguese-seek-culprits-for-world-cup-flop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/portuguese-seek-culprits-for-world-cup-flop\/","title":{"rendered":"Portuguese seek culprits for World Cup flop"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/ronaldo.jpg\" alt=\"ronaldo\" width=\"73%\" height=\"\" class=\"aligntop size-full wp-image-1073\" \/><\/p>\n<p>LISBON, Portugal (AP) \u2014 Portugal fans searching for explanations for their team&#8217;s disappointing World Cup performances are finding plenty of possible culprits.<\/p>\n<p>A last-gasp 2-2 draw against the United States on Sunday, following a 4-0 thrashing by Germany, has left the Portuguese on the verge of a first-round exit from the tournament in Brazil.<\/p>\n<p>Returning home after the group stage would be a stunning upset for team ranked fourth in the world by FIFA. That possibility comes after Spain, Portugal&#8217;s Iberian neighbor, saw its World Cup title defense come to an end after just two games.<\/p>\n<p>The finger-pointing in Portugal began Monday. Targets for criticism included the team&#8217;s perceived over-dependence on star Cristiano Ronaldo, poor physical preparation, misguided organization for the tournament, coach Paulo Bento&#8217;s failure to bring new players into the team, and a squad that&#8217;s thin on quality midfielders and strikers.<\/p>\n<p>Ronaldo gave a candid assessment after the game in Manaus, where Silvestre Varela&#8217;s equalizer in added time kept alive Portugal&#8217;s slender hopes of advancing.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re probably just an average team. I&#8217;d be lying if I said we were a top team,&#8221; Ronaldo said. &#8220;Portugal was never a favorite (at the World Cup). I honestly never thought I would be World Cup champion.&#8221;\/AP\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LISBON, Portugal (AP) \u2014 Portugal fans searching for explanations for their team&#8217;s disappointing World Cup performances are finding plenty of possible culprits. A last-gasp 2-2 draw against the United States on Sunday, following a 4-0 thrashing by Germany, has left the Portuguese on the verge of a first-round exit from the tournament in Brazil. Returning [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"views":802,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1072"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1075,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072\/revisions\/1075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}