Ronaldo makes history as Portugal leave it late to shine

Cristiano Ronaldo made European Championship history on two fronts as Portugal staged a late show to begin their campaign with a 3-0 win over Hungary.

Also pitted against world champions France and Germany in the toughest group of the tournament, hitting the ground running was viewed as key for Fernando Santos' side. It looked as if they would fail to do that in front of over 60,000 fans in Budapest, but Raphael Guerreiro's deflected strike finally gave them the lead six minutes from time.

And then Ronaldo – who became the first man to play in five different Euros – took centre stage as he broke the tournament goalscoring record with his 10th goal in the competition proper, emphatically dispatching a penalty after Willi Orban had brought down Rafa Silva. There was a final flourish from the Juventus star, who capped a wonderful move to take his tally to 11 in the second minute of stoppage time.

 

June 15, 2021

Diogo Jota endured a frustrating first half, seeing chances go begging as he was denied by Peter Gulacsi in the fifth minute, with the Hungary goalkeeper thwarting the Liverpool forward again in the 40th minute.

But the best opportunity of the first half fell to the eventual man of the hour, Ronaldo mystifyingly blazing over from point-blank range from Bruno Fernandes' cross two minutes before half-time. Gulacsi had to produce a strong save shortly after the restart as Pepe met another fine delivery from Fernandes, unsurprisingly Portugal's creator-in-chief.

Fernandes then had Gulacsi scrambling to keep out a long-range effort before Szabolcs Schon put the ball in the net at the other end, only for Hungary's rapturous celebrations to be cut short by the offside flag. And their hearts were broken in the 84th minute as Guerreiro's strike deflected off the left leg of Orban and into the bottom-left corner.

The game was over as a contest as Ronaldo stepped up to go beyond Michel Platini for goals in the European Championship finals, slotting into the bottom-right corner from 12 yards. Gloss to the scoreline was then applied in stylish fashion as Ronaldo played a superb one-two with Rafa before rounding a helpless Gulacsi and firing into an empty net.