Ronaldo scores against Poland after 17 years, Portugal extends winning streak

Leaving aside the disappointing EURO 2024, the Portuguese team is making a strong comeback in the Nations League. Not France, England, Germany, but Portugal is the team with the best performance in League A. In the last 2 matches, coach Roberto Martinez's students played overwhelmingly and defeated two formidable opponents, Scotland and Croatia, with the same score of 2-1 to top Group A1. Along with the Danish team, Portugal is one of the two teams that won all 2 matches in the first 2 matches.

In the match against Poland, Portugal aims to win to maintain the top position. Ronaldo is the player with special attention in this match and coach Roberto Martinez also put the 39-year-old superstar in the starting lineup. Notably, although the captain of the Portuguese team is leading the scoring list for the national team with 132 goals, he has not had any luck in scoring against Poland. In 7 matches against Poland, Ronaldo only scored 1 goal when the two teams drew 2-2 in the EURO 2008 qualifiers. It has been 17 years since then but Ronaldo has remained "silent".

Ronaldo's Portugal team (red shirt) returns strongly after failure at EURO 2024

Ronaldo's desire to score against Poland was evident in the first half when he was one of the Portuguese players who covered the most distance. The player wearing the number 7 shirt was closely marked so he often had to drop deep to connect the ball with the midfield. Ronaldo touched the ball 27 times in the first half (the most in Portugal's attack) and also had an impressive pass completion rate of 90%. In the 11th minute, Ronaldo made Polish fans gasp with a shot that hit the crossbar.

Ronaldo's aggressiveness also gave his surrounding satellites such as Rafael Leão, Pedro Neto and Bruno Fernandes a lot of space. In the 26th minute, Bruno Fernandes had an impressive combination with Bernardo Silva in the Polish penalty area, helping Portugal score the opening goal. In this situation, the home team's Polish defense also made a serious mistake by paying too much attention to Ronaldo, allowing Bernardo Silva to have a lot of space and easily shoot past goalkeeper Łukasz Skorupski.

After working hard throughout the match, in the 37th minute, Ronaldo was rewarded with a goal to raise the score to 2-0 for the Portuguese team. From Rafael Leão's shot that hit the post, the Portuguese captain was there at the right time, putting the ball into an empty net. This was Ronaldo's third consecutive goal after 3 matches for the Portuguese team. More importantly, after 17 years, Ronaldo finally broke the curse, scoring against Poland. The player born in 1985 also knew how to leave his mark after this goal with a new style of celebration with Diogo Dalot.

Ronaldo and Bernardo Silva gave Portugal a 2-0 lead after half-time

The 2-0 lead in the first half helped the Portuguese team start the second half with high spirits. The away team held the ball for 70% of the time and continuously put the Polish team's goal in a state of alarm. In this half, Bruno Fernandes was the player who was often mentioned when he missed 4 golden opportunities to score. The most regrettable situation happened in the 56th minute when Bruno Fernandes kicked the ball into the sky despite Ronaldo's favorable pass, completely surprising the Polish defense.

Starting from the 65th minute, coach Roberto Martinez refreshed the Portuguese attack, taking Ronaldo and Rafael Leao off. From then on, the Portuguese team lost control of the game and the lethality of their attacks was no longer maintained. However, in the 88th minute, the Portuguese team still found the third goal thanks to an own goal by Jan Bednarek.

On the other hand, the Polish team confidently pushed up their formation in the final minutes and scored a goal thanks to Piotr Zielinski. Fortunately for Portugal, this was all the home team Poland could do in this match.

Portugal team has 3 consecutive wins in UEFA Nations League 2024

With a 3-1 victory over Poland, the Portuguese team has won all 3 matches after 3 rounds of the UEFA Nations League 2024. Ronaldo and his teammates have 9 points, continuing to lead Group A1. In the next match, Portugal will do differently on the field of the Scottish team (October 16).

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/ronaldo-ghi-ban-vao-luoi-ba-lan-sau-17-nam-bo-dao-nha-noi-dai-mach-thang-185241013025936355.htm