Portugal vs Liechtenstein

Portugal’s bid to qualify for the eighth consecutive European Championship finals begins at the Estádio José Alvalade as they welcome minnows Liechtenstein in a curtain-raising Euro 2024 qualifying Group J contest.

A gut-wrenching 202 World Cup quarter-final exit to Morocco last December proved the end of the road for the long-serving manager Fernando Santos, who resigned immediately after the tournament. It’s now up to former Belgium head coach Roberto Martinez to navigate Portugal’s resurgence, starting with a seemingly straightforward task of extending his side’s flawless three-game H2H form at home. It’s worth noting that the ‘Selecao’ averaged a whopping six goals per match across those three encounters, with two of them yielding national-record 8-0 wins. Martinez’s touchline debut should be a resounding success, with Portugal winning four straight competitive home matches via multi-goal margins before going down 1-0 to neighbors Spain in their most recent such match-up.

In the meantime, visiting Liechtenstein could not have asked for a worse place to launch their Euro qualifying campaign after going winless in all ten qualifiers for Euro 2022 (D2, L8). The visitors look like a doom outfit long before the kick-off, as they take this trip on the back of 13 consecutive defeats, including an abysmal 2-0 loss at continental minnows Gibraltar last time out. A quadruple of 2-0 failures in the build-up to this encounter denies any reasonable hope for Liechtenstein to defy their traditionally embarrassing scoring record in Euro qualifiers that’s seen them bag only four goals in the last two campaigns. Damage limitation is perhaps Liechtenstein’s main goal here, as Rene Pauritsch’s men are winless away from home since beating fellow Group J rivals Luxembourg in October 2022 (D2, L11).