Portugal Steals A Win in Extra Time Over Mexico

One of the biggest stories heading into this game was all of the injuries that had been reported to FIFA prior to Mexico and Portugal going head to head in Foxboro, MA last night. Franck Ribery is out of the world cup, Marco Reus could be out with an ankle injury for Germany, and Cristiano Ronaldo is questionable as to how physically fit he is and how bad his injury is heading into the world cup. So, if you headed to Foxboro last night to see Ronaldo in action, then you were let down. Paulo Bento sat a lot of his starters on the bench last night maybe in fear of the plague of injuries that has been going around. The team headed into this game failing to get a result in their last warm up game against Greece. Mexico started their run on the right foot, but suffered a setback in their previous game against Bosnia And Herzegovina. Mexican coach Miguel Herrera revealed what many believe to be his starting ten last night during the first half with the goalkeeper position still in question.

José de Jesús Corona started in the game in net for Mexico while Eduardo started for Portugal and neither player faced any real opposition in the first half. Portugal had the best chances on net in the first half, but Eder couldn't execute near the net. The first half would end with both teams still tied at zero. The second half was much of the same except Mexico turned up the pace as the Portuguese midfield was absent for most of the half. Eduardo made some beautiful saves in the second half that kept the score even at zero once again despite some strong efforts from guys like Javier Hernández and Héctor Herrera. It was until the injury time added on to the second half that we would see our first goal of the game. Mexico had given up a foul some distance away from the net so João Moutinho stepped up to take the free kick. He launches the ball into the box and with some luck it found the head of defender Bruno Alves who heads the ball right past the second half substituted goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa. The sad part for Mexico was the officials gave three minutes of extra time and the goal came at the 92:30 mark. It wasn't the prettiest win for Portugal, but it was a positive result as the team heads back to New York to take on Northern Ireland in their last warm up game.