Portugal Euro Cup: Portugal continues dream run towards Euro 2024
Ramos scored two of the team's first three goals as Ronaldo's standby, a role he seems to flourish in. Portugal didn't need Cristiano Ronaldo to rack up their biggest-ever win in a viable game. A 9-0 rout of Luxembourg in the Germany Euro Cup qualifiers on Monday was accomplished without Ronaldo, who was suspended because of an accumulation of yellow cards in previous Group J games.
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In the absence of the five-time global player of the year and record scorer in men's games, Goncalo Ramos, Goncalo Inacio and Diogo Jota all counted twice along with goals for Ricardo Horta, Bruno Fernandes and Joao Felix in the Algarve. It was a suitable aspect that, being 4-0 or 5-0 up, the team kept playing the same way as if it was 0-0, Portugal Euro Cup team coach Roberto Martinez said.
When you get that, it shows you the values of the players and that respect toward the team is essential that was good to see. The 38-year-old Ronaldo missed a great chance to add to his haul of 123 international goals but there'll be four more chances in a Euro Cup group that Portugal is leading with six straight wins. No other team has that many wins in qualifying.
Martinez’s team stayed five points ahead of Slovakia and moved eight ahead of Luxembourg. The top two in each group qualify automatically. Ramos scored two of the team's first three goals as Ronaldo's standby, a role he seems to thrive in. He did it remarkably at last year’s World Cup in Qatar in a huge call by then-coach Fernando Santos. Ronaldo was dropped to the bench for the game against Switzerland in the round of 16.
Ramos scored a hat trick in that game, declaring himself to the football world. He has since made a move from Benfica to Paris Saint-Germain and might be the long-term extra for Ronaldo, who now plays in Saudi Arabia, for Portugal’s team that is surely heading to Euro Cup 2024. Germany's 13-0 battering of San Marino in 2006 remains the biggest-ever win in European Championship qualifying.
In other competitions in the group, Slovakia beat Liechtenstein 3-0 and Iceland has beaten Bosnia-Herzegovina 1-0. In Group D, Croatia's 1-0 win over Armenia in Yerevan was overdue for about 70 seconds in the first half when a drone carrying the flag of Nagorno-Karabakh, a separate Armenian-populated region of Azerbaijan, flew over the field to cheers and clapping from many home Euro Cup fans, according to footage on social media.
The event comes amid soaring tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan, with lawmakers in the region which the Armenians call Artsakh voting to elect a new nationalist president on Saturday in a move that was strongly fated by the Azerbaijani authorities. It is set to lead to a Uefa remedial case on the grounds of it being a political report at a game.
In 2014, a drone with a radical banner was flown into the stadium where Albania and Serbia were playing a Euro qualifier in Belgrade, prompting clashes among players. Serbian Euro Cup fans also attacked Albania team members and threw flares onto the field. That game was abandoned and Serbia was originally awarded a default 3-0 conquest by Uefa. Euro fans can buy Euro Cup Tickets at exclusively discounted prices.
The sanction was upturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Andrej Kramaric’s early goal sealed the triumph for Croatia that lifted the World Cup semi-finalists into first place in the group. The striker tapped in at the far post after a 13th-minute corner from Luka Modric bounced off an Armenia player and went straight to Kramaric, who stuck out a foot and unfocused the ball in.
After starting Group D with an unacceptable 1-1 home draw with Wales, Croatia has won three straight games and gone above Turkey on goal difference, having played one game fewer. Wales won 2-0 in Latvia thanks to goals by Aaron Ramsey and David Brooks and linked Armenia on seven points, three behind Croatia and Turkey. It was a dismissing win for Wales coach Robert Page, who has faced rising pressure after back-to-back defeats in the group.
Ronaldo’s last dance at Euro Cup 2024 and a new group of hope
With five wins from five and no goals approved yet in this qualifying drive, Portugal is one of the early choices for the summer competition despite a changing of the guard being overseen under Roberto Martinez. Eight years on from Portugal’s shock win at Euro Cup 2016 civility of a winner from Eder against France, there is once more hope that it may be the turn of A Selecao das Quinas to bring the award back to Porto.
The Euro 2024 in June will again be conquered by the giant shadow of Cristiano Ronaldo looming over the national side after Paulo Santos chose to drop the expert in favour of Goncalo Ramos in Qatar. It was a move that showed success, but the side couldn’t exploit their newfound chemistry and hurt a shock last 16 defeat at the hands of underdogs Morocco, causing Santos to lose his job and plenty of rumour around Ronaldo’s global career.
So far, Martinez has reinstated him to the side, and Ronaldo has scored five times in the five Euro Cup qualifiers so far. The warning, of course, is that these goals have come against Lichtenstein, Bosnia and Luxembourg, none of whom are likely to be in the reckoning to win the competition in Germany, and some enemies will still question if the 38-year-old is the right man to lead the line in bigger games.
Opting for a 3-4-3 creation, Martinez has stumbled across a winning formula with a front three of Joao Felix and Bernardo Silva either side of Ronaldo, while Joao Palhinha and Bruno Fernandes appear to be his preferred midfield pairing. ahead of the likes of Ruben Neves, now playing for Saudi side Al-Hilal. It is a scheme that has yielded plenty of goals and is yet to grant any, though again with the caveat that the sides that they have faced aren’t first-rate.
There are also wider queries about the man in charge, with Martinez widely accused of squandering Belgium’s golden generation, and with Portugal now perhaps at their strongest in recent years, there are fears he could do the same to another European giant. For now, these fears simmer in the background as Portugal fly through their Euro 2024 group, and they will make it into June’s tournament.
Should they win just two of their final four games, where they will be measured as one of the big favourites? With Ronaldo set to be 41 by the time the World Cup in the USA comes around, it could be the striker’s last chance to win another piece of silverware for his nation, and his goals so far have confirmed that they will be in with a shout of doing that, provided they can piece together their best team.
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