Portugal solely ranked third in Group F at this yr’s EURO, inflicting the defending champion to face Belgium, the highest workforce of Group B within the 1/8 spherical. The epic match at La Cartuja (Sevilla, Spain) passed off attractively proper after the opening.
Coach Fernando Santos’ military was the workforce with the primary exceptional alternative after Diogo Jota’s nook kick early within the recreation. Cristiano Ronaldo additionally created a harmful state of affairs that made Thibaut Courtois unable to catch the ball within the twenty fifth minute, however Joao Palhinha’s header was too gentle.
And Belgium is harmful with many harmful assaults. Solely 5 minutes after defender Thomas Meunier’s surprising trivela, the “Purple Devils” opened the scoring from Thorgan Hazard’s lovely right-footed within the forty second minute.
Main Portugal, the “Purple Devils” entered the second half fairly comfortably. Though Kevin De Bruyne quickly needed to depart the sector attributable to harm, the Belgian workforce had nice luck once they escaped 2 targets.
82 minutes Ruben Dias’ header from shut vary went too shut for Courtois to avoid wasting, and simply 1 minute after Raphael Guerreiro’s second-line shot despatched the ball again to the publish.
The 0-1 defeat made Portugal formally the previous king of EURO. In the meantime, the workforce that’s ranked no 1 on the earth on the FIFA rankings proudly superior to the quarter-finals and can face Italy.
Within the early morning match, CR7 performed exhausting. He actively moved extensive to make room within the penalty space for Diogo Jota. The Juventus ahead had 4 pictures, however solely one among them was on track, a free kick blocked by Courtois on the finish of the primary half.
Ronaldo needed to bid farewell to Euro 2020, however he had time to create a sequence of information akin to the very best goalscorer in match historical past (14 targets), the one participant to seem in 5 consecutive Euros, the participant with a complete Most targets in World Cup/Euro (21 targets)…
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