Portugal President wants his side to avoid Brazil in round of 16

Portugal became the third team to secure a place in the round of 16 of the 2022 World Cup, by beating Uruguay 2-0, in the second round of Group H, played in Lusail.

Shortly after the match, the President of Portugal Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who was in Braga, was obviously very satisfied with his nation's progress to the round of 16 of the competition and hopes that Brazil will not be the opponent.

"Despite wanting to see a Portugal-Brazil match in the [World Cup] final, I hope [Brazil] is not our opponent", said Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who also analyzed the match.

“I think maybe Bruno Fernandes deserves [the election as man of the field]. He scored a goal, hit the post and was very constant from the beginning to the end of the game. Diogo Costa defended very well, but Bruno Fernandes was from start to finish”, he said.

Marcelo said that he "had the intuition" that Portugal would win and stressed that he was right in the result, in the prediction he had made this afternoon.

"The second was very good, everything went well, it's a fair result", he said, stressing that it had been a long time since Portugal had finished a game like this, without suffering in the final minutes.

Individualizing, and in addition to the selection of Bruno Fernandes as the man of the match, he said that Diogo Costa defended “very well”, that Ronaldo “made a brutal effort”, that João Cancelo was much better and that Pepe “gave a lot of security”.

"I'm not an expert on this, but they all played very well," he added.

According to Marcelo, also the national coach, Fernando Santos, did well to refresh the team and "put three young people with legs".

"At that moment, Uruguay was definitely disoriented", he concluded, for whom today's victory meant "a great joy for Portugal".

The second-placed team in Group H will face Brazil in the round of 16 stage.