Cristiano Ronaldo breaks world record and is of great value to Portugal


Thursday, March 23, 2023 at 10:41 PM• Sam Vreeswijk • Last update: 22:56

Portugal has made a good start to the qualifying campaign for the 2024 European Championship in Germany. With national coach Roberto Martínez on the bench for the first time, the Portuguese defeated Liechtenstein without any problems: 4-0. The goals in Lisbon came from João Cancelo, Bernardo Silva and Cristiano Ronaldo (twice). Portugal now leads Group J with the win.

Portugal was eliminated in the quarter-finals at the World Cup in Qatar by Morocco (1-0), after which national coach Fernando Santos was fired. Martínez then came over from Belgium and was therefore on the bench against Liechtenstein for the first time. There were quite a few other names in the Portuguese base against the dwarf state than against Morocco. One of these was Ronaldo, who played his 197th international match, breaking a world record: a football player has never played so many games for a country.

As could be expected, the hosts dominated almost the entire match. After just eight minutes, Cancelo opened the score by shooting a falling ball from distance after a corner kick: 1-0. Portugal had nice opportunities to double the margin in the remainder of the first half, but Danilo (tipped the ball wide), Ronaldo (shot over after the defender missed the ball) and Bruno Fernandes (long shot just wide) were not lucky. silk.

In the second half it became 2-0 early on: a cross from Cancelo fell at the feet of Silva, who doubled the margin. A few minutes later, Portugal were awarded a penalty after a foul by Jens Hofer on Cancelo. Ronaldo was allowed to moor from eleven meters and did not fail: 3-0. The same superstar also made it 4-0 in the 64th minute by shooting a free kick hard. In the final phase, Portugal had a number of opportunities to achieve an even bigger victory, but the ball did not go in.