Portugal is going to participate in their first world cup in Rugby World Cup 2007. Rugby World Cup 2007 will be held in France. From 7 September the tournament will be start. Twenty teams around the world will compete for the William Webb Ellis Cup, the cup awarded to the champion team of Rugby world cup. As a debutant Portugal will definitely try to do something memorable for them, though in reality they are far behind than other participating teams of Rugby world cup 2007 in terms of skill and experience.
Portugal will play in Pool C where they have to face former world cup winner New Zealand, Italy, Romania and Scotland. To be honest, they have hardly any chance to enter into the knock out stage. You will be surprised to know that Portugal played their first international rugby match in 1935 against Spain. However, it is a good news that at last, they could qualify for the most prestigious tournament in the rugby world. Portugal qualified for the 2007 rugby world cup defeating Uruguay by 24-23 in the first leg at Portugal though they lost the second leg by 18-12. Portugal will play their first match on 9 September against Scotland.
Portugal Coach Tomaz Morais has recently unveiled the 30 man squad for Rugby world cup 2007. Coach is hopeful with his players and he said that his players would try to surprise the opponents. So, let us see how the Portuguese players perform in Rugby world cup 2007.
For your interest, I am giving the names of the squad members from the official website of Rugby world cup below:
Forwards: Rui Cordeiro, Juan Muré, André Lourenço, Duarte Figueiredo, João Correia, Joaquim Ferreira, Ruben Spachuk, Gonçalo Uva, David Penalva, Marcelo Dias, Diogo Coutinho,Tiago Girão, Juan Somoza, Vasco Uva, João Uva, Paulo Murinello.
Backs: Luis Pissarra, José Pinto, Pedro Cabral, Gonçalo Malheiro, Duarte Pinto, Diogo Mateus, Diogo Gama, Frederico Sousa, Miguel Morais, Pedro Carvalho, António Aguilar, David Mateus, Gonçalo Foro, Pedro Leal.
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