Group of Death: even a loss to France could be enough for Portugal to advance. What does it take?

The reigning European champions stand on the precipice ahead of their last group game. They are playing for everything in their duel with France, a defeat could see them knocked out of the tournament. Or not, but a few circumstances would have to come together for that to happen.

Portugal have brought an extremely strong squad to the championship, with optimism on the Iberian Peninsula boosted by their 3-0 win over Hungary. But then came an unexpected 2:4 loss to Germany and the Portuguese may well end up in the group of death. In the last match, they will face the world champion France.

Let’s do some calculations. France has 4 points, Germany and Portugal 3, Hungary 1. With a plus score, a draw would almost certainly put Ronaldo and co. into the eighth round, no need to talk about a win.

Under certain constellations, however, a one-goal loss could put the European champions through. Indeed, the current score of the Portuguese is 5: 4, in the case of an even score and such a high number of goals it could mean progression.

Four teams from the six groups will advance from third place. The current table of the third teams is as follows:

1. Switzerland 3 games 4 points 4::5 score
2. Portugal 2 matches 3 points 5::4 score
3. Austria 2 matches 3 points 3::3 score
4. Finland 2 matches 3 points 1::1 score
5. Spain 2 matches 2 points 1::1 score
6. Croatia 2 matches 1 point 1::2 score

Count on Portugal losing to France 1::0. At that point it would have a score of 5::5. Also, let’s count on both Spain (Slovakia) and Croatia (Scotland) winning their duels, so the third place team will be the better scoring of the groups.

In this constellation, Portugal only needs Finland and Austria to lose their matches against the Netherlands and Ukraine. At that point, Fernando Santos’ charges would finish fourth in the third-place table and move on.

Both of these matches will be played on Monday evening, so if the results end in favour of the Portuguese, they will already know before their match that they could lose by one goal.

Advancing from third place in the group with three points is nothing new for Ronaldo and co. At Euro 2016, Portugal advanced from third place with three points after draws against Austria, Iceland and Hungary.

In the knockout stage, they successively eliminated Croatia, Poland and Wales, and in the final they beat France to win the whole championship. Could a similar scenario repeat itself?

Source:: Livesport