Wolves right-back Nelson Semedo came off the bench on Friday night as Portugal suffered a heartbreaking penalty shootout defeat to France, knocking them out of Euro 2024.
Four Wolves players are currently on international duty, with Nelson Semedo representing Portugal at Euro 2024.
The 30-year-old enjoyed a fantastic campaign at Molineux, resulting in a call-up for his international team, though such form hasn’t been translated across to the tournament.
Semedo has been forced into playing understudy to Joao Cancelo, who has started every single game, predominantly playing as a right-back.
Indeed, the Wanderers defender has been restricted to minutes from the bench and that was the case on Friday night as Portugal exited Euro 2024, losing to France on penalties.
How Nelson Semedo was rated by the Portuguese press
Portugal topped their Euro 2024 group on goal difference ahead of Turkey to set up a clash against Slovenia in the round of 16, a match they scraped through on penalties.
A similar narrative unfolded against France in the quarter-finals, with the match going to penalties after a goalless 120 minutes, though this time Semedo’s team were on the losing side.
Semedo was introduced for Cancelo in the 74th minute of normal time and played 46 minutes overall but how have the Portuguese media been rating him?
To begin with, Observador scored Semedo just a 5/10 offering a simple yet unflattering review of his performance: “5 POINTS: Tried to go up, won corners, scored with Francisco Conceição – it wasn’t because of him that Portugal lost.”
A Bola were slightly more positive about his display, handing him a 6/10 match rating while claiming he showed confidence against the talented French forwards: “He replaced Cancelo at right-back and showed confidence against the speed of the French forwards.”
Outlet Zap were less kind to Semedo, handing him a 4.9 rating – the second worst in the Portugal squad after Joao Felix, who was given a 4.8. While ZeroZero gave the Wolves man a respectable 6, which happened to be the second worst in the Portugal team, behind only Cristiano Ronaldo (5).
Gary O’Neil will be slightly happy with this outcome
Semedo wasn’t physically exerted throughout the tournament and played a combined 96 minutes across five matches.
He was mostly used as fresh legs late on in a game as opposed to an attacking weapon down the right flank, as he so often is for Wolves.
O’Neil will be pleased that Semedo didn’t play a ton of football for Portugal this summer and will come back to Molineux fresh, and ready to tackle the 2024/25 campaign head-on.
The only current concern surrounding the defender is his immediate future. With his contract expiring in 2025, the Old Gold have a big decision to make; sell him this summer, renew his contract, or let him depart for nothing next year.