Portugal\u2019s latest bid for World Cup glory begins in Houston on \u200bWednesday when they take on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in a Group K clash against a \u200cside appearing at their first global finals in 52 years.<\/p>\n
DRC played as Zaire when they took part in the 1974 World Cup but lost all three games, conceded 14 goals and scored none. They are unlikely to be so poor again.<\/p>\n
Portugal have 41-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo \u200baiming to win one of the last remaining pieces of major silverware to have eluded him in his \u200billustrious career.<\/p>\n
They exited in the quarter-finals at the hands of another African side, Morocco, at the \u20602022 finals, while their best finish is third in 1966.<\/p>\n
A positive start is important in a pool that also \u200bcontains Colombia and Uzbekistan.<\/p>\n
They have lost only two of their last 15 World Cup group-stage matches, but one of those was to \u200bSouth Korea in 2022.<\/p>\n
“We know the World Cup is a fast competition,” Portugal defender Matheus Nunes said. “There are only eight games, and when we play against all these national teams, I think they all have a lot of quality nowadays.<\/p>\n
“We have to approach every game as if \u200bit were a final, because in theory there may be teams that look weaker, maybe on paper, but then \u200bon the field, it’s a match, and in a match anything can happen.<\/p>\n
“Ninety minutes is a long time, and we have to be \u200cmore \u2060than ready to win every game.”
\nPortugal defender Ruben Dias trained separately, opens new tab from the rest of the squad on Monday for undisclosed reasons.<\/p>\n
Portugal are unbeaten in their last five World Cup group-stage matches against African opponents, recording four wins and a draw since a 3-1 loss to Morocco in 1986.<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":34900,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-37278","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"DRC played as Zaire when they took part in the 1974 World Cup but lost all three games.","published_date":"","news_description":"","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37279,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37278\/revisions\/37279"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=37278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}