Portugal was ultimately able to halt the dream run of Wales. The first half of the match was equally played out with Wales having a slightly upper hand. Bale made some really sharp entries into the Portugal half but they missed a finisher. They also missed the services of play maker Ramsey who was ruled out because of successive Yellow cards.
The second half belonged to Portugal and Wales’s dream was destroyed within a span of 2-3 minutes. First came a brilliant header from Ronaldo. Wales defenders did their best to contain the striker, but this time Ronaldo jumped too high and held in the air for too long for the defenders to catch up.
As it turned out from newspaper reports that fraction of a second jump from Ronaldo was a demonstration of superhuman levels of physical strength and agility. This was followed few minutes later by a swift cross into the Wales box that landed at the feet of Nani who deftly deflected it into the back of the net.
Yesterday night France trashed Germany from the Euro. Reading reviews it seems that game was dominated by Germany to a great extent but Griezmann made good of the two chances received.
Now at the final stage it looks will be a showdown between #7s from either sides.
Portugal and France are both teams I have loved since the time Figo and Zidane. Zidane has achieved all the coveted honours with the national team and club but Figo missed out national team glory. In Euro 2004 Portugal had a dream team but somehow an upbeat Greece shocked them. A young Ronaldo belonged to that team. Since then the world has seen the rise of a star; a star who has risen to the occasion time and again.
Ronaldo is not a naturally gifted talent as Lionel Messi but he is definitely an athlete and an individual with will power, grit and determination. His dribbling skills no longer fool the defenders but still he keeps on improvising. His years under Sir Alex at ManU were his formative years. That was period he honed his skills and transformed himself into a lethal striker culminating into the Champions League triumph. His rise further continued after his move to Real Madrid fulfilling his dream to be a Galactico.
Along with Lionel Messi, both have been the most dominant force in the soccer legions for the past decade. These two have dominated almost every honour related to soccer either individually or as part of their respective club teams. But national glory has eluded both of them so far. Since Ronaldo (in 2003) and Messi (in 2004) made their debut at the international stage Italy, Spain, Germany have won FIFA World Cup; Greece and Spain (twice) have won Euro; and Brazil (twice), Uruguay and Chile (twice) have won the Copa America.
Messi got beaten twice by Chile in Copa and once by Germany in Argentina. And now the time has come yet again for Ronaldo.
After riding luck and some lackluster performance during the initial stages, Portugal showed some promise against Wales. It was time that Portugal took their campaign in their own hands and they did. Ronaldo again rose to the occasion and saw his team through.
In the past few months there has been some tremendous performance from Ronaldo starting with El Classico against Barcelona, in Champions League against Wolfsburg in the Champions League, the final shot in the Champions League final, Euro first round match against Hungary and the latest encounter against Wales. The win against Barcelona almost took Real Madrid to the top of La Liga table ending the dream run Barcelona was having. However the point gap with Barcelona was too huge to bridge and ultimately Real came second with just a single point separating them from Barcelona. Even though La Liga was lost, Real Madrid continued their winning run in the Champions League and took the trophy for a record 11th time.
It needs to be seen if Ronaldo again rise to the occasion. When the tournament began one month back no one expected Portugal to be there in the finals but they are there. Hope they display some superlative performance and win the Euro for the first time. And yes Ronaldo scoring will be a cherry on top of the ice-cream.
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