Barcelona’s João Cancelo started and played 89 minutes as Portugal found a way to win their Group F opener over Czechia in Leipzig in dramatic fashion on Tuesday to end a very exciting first round of Euro 2024 group stage action. Francisco Conceição wins it late for Portugal #EURO2024 | #PORCZE pic.twitter.
com/YbM4fAfT0J — UEFA EURO 2024 (@EURO2024) June 18, 2024 The theme of the game was Portugal’s inability to turn their superior possession into clear-cut chances, with Roberto Martínez naming a strange starting XI that included Cancelo in an inverted left wing-back role in a 3-4-3 formation that had a lot of the ball but did almost nothing to truly trouble the Czech defense. Czechia stayed organized at the back and had some good moments in attack, and at the hour mark got a reward for their solid performance when Lukas Provod fired a beautiful strike from outside the box to give the Czechs the lead. Portugal answered almost immediately and got a lucky break when a header by Nuno Mendes was deflected by goalkeeper Jindrich Stanek onto the leg of defender Robin Hranac and into the net to make it all square with 20 minutes to go.
The Portuguese finally started playing better football after the equalizer with more attacking players on the pitch, including a couple of substitutions that changed Cancelo to a more traditional right wing-back role, and they almost took the lead through Diogo Jota but the goal was disallowed for a narrow offside on Cristiano Ronaldo. B.