4-0 is the largest a defending world champion has lost, and it was repeated tonight, with Portugal's 4-0 trashing of Spain in a friendly match in Lisbon. Granted, it was a friendly match, but just like Argentina's 4-1 victory earlier this year, these are valuable scalps for the winning side, and Portugal in particular.
Portugal was plainly bad in the world cup under Carlos Queiroz, and were almost a walkover for Spain in the last-16. After the world cup, it would take a pathetic start to the Euro qualifiers (tie with Cyprus and a defeat to Norway) before Queiroz was fired, and the new coach Paulo Bento seems to have raised the standard of the side that always has potential but disappoints: in the Euro qualifiers Iceland and Denmark were defeated, and tonight's victory will sure raise the alarm in teams that have to face the rising Portuguese machine.
Spain in the meantime cannot use this defeat for anything in spite of the huge humilliation it is to lose to its smaller neighbour, and even as defending world champions!
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