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Nani out for Portugal

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Nani picked up a collarbone injury on Friday. That pretty much wipes out my tournament dark horse, Portugal. The Portuguese team revealed the injury on Tuesday, calling up Benfica midfielder Ruben Amorim as Nani's replacement.

Nani wasn't Portugal's best player (Cristiano Ronaldo is that man) but it now becomes a lot easier for opponents to prepare to play the Portuguese outfit. Any world class team can lock one superstar down, but it's much more than twice as difficult to lock down two. Cristiano Ronaldo is now not only going to be shadowed very closely by every opponent's best pure defensive player, at times, he'll be blanketed by two men.

There are some other midfielders and forwards of a decent standard, but it's not so much that Nani's gone…it's that the Threat of Nani is gone. Raul Meireles is now going to have to carry much of the load if Portugal plans to be a contender. I'd love to see it, but I have my doubts.