Welcoming the weaker Luxembourg at home at Jose Alvalade in the capital Lisbon, Portugal wants 3 points to shorten the gap with the top team Ukraine, and giving coach Fernando Santos a late birthday gift at the age of 65. Ronaldo and the world's most expensive young talent - Joao Felix are playing from the start.
With home advantage and superior strength, Portugal continuously pushed up their attack formation, putting great pressure on the Luxembourg defense right after the referee blew the whistle to start.
The Luxembourg defense played a large defense, very focused and resilient under pressure from the home team but conceded an early goal in the 16th minute, after Bernardo Silva's goal.
During the following period, Portugal still completely dominated the game. However, Luxembourg showed that they were not shy after conceding a goal, the away team continued to deploy a defensive style of play in a very good style of play, causing Portugal to face many difficulties and helplessness in trying to double the gap in the first half.
It was not until the 65th minute that Seleccao scored the second goal from Cris Ronaldo's technical and very delicate shot. Taking advantage of the superficialness of the Luxembourg defense, Cristiano Ronaldo stole the ball before pointing the top of a classy shoe over the away team's goalkeeper. This was Ronaldo's 94th goal for the national team and the 699th goal of his glorious career.
Continuously putting pressure after Ronaldo's goal, Portugal scored another goal in the 89th minute thanks to the player's goal coming on as a replacement for Gonçalo Guedes. This was the final goal of the match.
Winning Luxembourg 3-0, Portugal had their first home win in the Euro 2020 qualifiers after two consecutive draws against Ukraine and Serbia. This victory could not help Portugal take the top spot because also in the match early this morning, Ukraine beat Lithuania with a score of 2-0.
Currently, Ukraine is at the top of the table with 5 points more than Portugal (16 compared to 11) but has played 1 match more than this opponent. In 3 days (October 15), Coach Shevchenko's team will host Portugal in the match considered the final of Group B of the Euro 2020 qualifiers.
