Portugal win second U17 EURO title on penalties
Saturday, May 21, 2016
Article summary
Portugal 1-1 Spain (Portugal win 5-4 on penalties)
La Roja captain Manu Morlanes struck the woodwork with the tenth penalty as Portugal were crowned U17 EURO champions for a second time.
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- Portugal win the 2016 UEFA European Under-17 Championship on penalties
- Spain captain Manu Morlanes is the only player to miss in the shoot-out
- Diogo Dalot puts Portugal ahead; Brahim Díaz soon restores parity
- Portugal's run of five clean sheets is ended by Díaz's headed equaliser
- Spain suffer their fourth final defeat, following those in 2003, 2004 and 2010
Portugal won their second UEFA European Under-17 Championship title by defeating Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw, La Roja captain Manu Morlanes missing the decisive spot kick.
Nine had been converted when the Villarreal player clipped the outside of Diogo Costa's left-hand post, giving Portugal the trophy they last lifted 13 years years ago.
Both goals arrived in the space of six minutes either side of the half-hour mark, Diogo Dalot opening the scoring with his second in as many games, firing across Ignacio Peña after José Gomes had chested on Rúben Vinagre's left-wing cross. Cue the Cristiano Ronaldo-style celebration witnessed against the Netherlands on Wednesday.
Spain's riposte was quick. Morlanes delivered from the right, defender Juan Brandariz nodded the ball on and Brahim Díaz got above his marker to direct goalwards a header that Dalot could not prevent from crossing the line.
Adrián appearance
With full time imminent, Santi Denia sent on Adrián for his first action of the finals. Unlike Tim Krul in the Netherlands' 2014 FIFA World Cup quarter-final shoot-out against Costa Rica, however, the Espanyol keeper did not turn out to be the hero.
Beaten … finally
Costa's run of not conceding a goal in this season's edition ended at 656 minutes when Díaz struck. Until then, the Porto shot-stopper had not picked the ball out of the net for Portugal in this competition since Trevoh Chalobah put England ahead in a qualifying round fixture on 4 October.
History repeats itself
The final produced the same outcome – if not the scoreline – as in 2003, when Portugal won their only previous U17 title by defeating Spain 2-1 on home soil. João Moutinho, Miguel Veloso and Vieirinha, all long-time senior internationals, were members of that squad. Who will follow in their footsteps from the class of 2016?
Quiet Gomes
Credit must go to Spain, particularly their defence, for keeping 2016 finals top scorer Gomes under wraps. Denia said on Friday that his charges needed to defend as a team to stop the Benfica forward, who had seven goals in four starts in Azerbaijan coming into this game. They did just that, restricting the Guinea-Bissau-born player to only one shot on target.