The 2016 Olympics men's soccer tournament semifinals are starting to take shape, after Germany battered and humbled Portugal in a dominating performance. The final score was 4-0 but could have been much wider, with breakout star Serge Gnabry playing a starring role once more as he opened the scoring and lead his side to another impressive performance.
Portugal vs. Germany 2016: Final score 4-0, Serge Gnabry leads another Olympic rout
Serge Gnabry continued to impress in another lopsided performance that propelled Germany to the Olympic semifinals.
Bruno Zanardo/Getty Images
The match started with Germany the stronger team going forward, spending long swathes of time practically camped out in Portugal's defensive third of the pitch. Portugal did well defending against Germany's onslaught, though, forcing Die Mannschaft to constantly switch the ball around in their attempts to find an opening. When they did find one, Portugal were able to put enough pressure on German attackers to spoil their shots, with Davie Selke in particular struggling to get shots away cleanly in front of goal, missing a couple of excellent scoring opportunities.
Eventually Germany’s frustrations at being unable to score started opening some cracks in their own defensive efforts, and Portugal were able to work a few dangerous scoring chances of their own after being held largely quiet for much of the first half. Their own finishing let them down, however, and once Germany resettled themselves the same pattern of possession domination resumed, with Portugal just trying to fend them off.
They almost held out until halftime, but they couldn’t stop Serge Gnabry forever. Easily the player in the hottest form of the Olympics so far, there was really no one else who could have broken the deadlock for Germany. Just before halftime it was Gnabry capitalizing on a gorgeous piece of play from Julian Brandt to set him up, scoring his sixth goal of the tournament and giving Germany a huge boost to their momentum just before the halftime whistle.
After that, it was pretty much all downhill for Portugal. They couldn’t establish any meaningful possession to slow Germany’s onslaught, getting outpowered and outworked all over the pitch. Even with the halftime break to reorganize themselves and make adjustments, it was only a matter of time before Germany broke Portugal down again — it took all of 12 minutes for Matthias Ginter to find the back of the net to put Germany up 2-0.
That goal secured the win, but Germany weren’t done — Selke finally broke out of his struggles with a nice finish to make it 3-0, and in the waning minutes substitute Philipp Max found the back of the net just a few minutes after replacing Gnabry. They wouldn’t add a fifth, though it hardly mattered — the match was effectively long over and Germany had advanced to the Olympic semifinals with ease.
See More:
