JAKARTA - Some people doubt whether 36-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo can still bring the best to his country after a long and difficult season. However, after Portugal's 3-0 win over Hungary in their Euro 2020 opener on Wednesday morning, those who had doubts got the answer.
Portugal, the 2016 European champions, sailed into the rescheduled tournament as one of the favourites, given coach Fernando Santos' attacking talent.
Bruno Fernandes has spent a productive season with Manchester United and is already one of the club's most important players; Diogo Jota who was successful with Liverpool; and Bernardo Silva who played an important role in leading Manchester City to win the Premier League.
But as the Premier League trio wowed a packed and boisterous crowd in Budapest, and attempted to break through Hungary's formidable defense, Portugal needed another relentless talisman to win them over.
He did it at the last moment, but he was not disappointing.
This is also the day Ronaldo set another record. The penalty he converted that put Portugal 2-0 up in the 87th minute ensured he became the first player in European Cup finals history to score a total of 10 goals and then 11 thanks to goals in injury time to overtake Michel Platini's record nine goals of nine. all created at Euro 1984.
That night looks like it will be a frustrating night for the Juventus striker. He squandered a golden opportunity in the first half to open the scoring as his teammates also lacked composure in front of the goal.
Jota, who has scored one goal in his last 11 games for club and country, was substituted in the second half, as the impact of an injury-ridden season was evident to everyone.
But after Portugal's slightly lucky opener six minutes from time it was all about Ronaldo, who added a cool third goal 177 seconds after the penalty kick.
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The way he kept his cool before beating the keeper for the second time that evening proved that even when not at his best, his prowess in front of goal, when it mattered, was as deadly as ever.
The veteran has now 106 international goals, three short of the all-time record set by Iran's Ali Daei.
The desire to keep scoring goals and records remains stronger than ever. After an impressive start to this edition of the tournament, few doubts that Ronaldo will surpass Daei's record and add one more award to his growing list of records before Euro 2020 concludes.
Ronaldo's record today from the match against Hungary:
- Become the all-time leading goalscorer of the Euros with 11 goals
- Portugal's all-time leading goalscorer with 106 goals
- First player to appear in five European Cup finals
- First player to score in five consecutive Euro finals
Cristiano Ronaldo 🤩
⚽️ All-time EURO top scorer (11 goals)
🇵🇹 All-time top scorer for Portugal (106 goals)
👕 First player to appear at 5 EURO final tournaments
👏 First player to score at 5 consecutive EURO final tournaments #EURO2020 pic.twitter.com/rjJ7C5iXo1
— UEFA EURO 2020 (@EURO2020) June 15, 2021
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