Real Football Man All of the Football, All of the time
It hasn’t been a particularly good tournament for Cristiano Ronaldo so far, he has failed to score while he and his Portugal teammates are yet to register a win at Euro 2016. Tonight they go up against surprise Group F leaders Hungary in a bid to secure a place in the Round of 16.
If it hasn’t been a good tournament then it certainly wasn’t a good night for Ronaldo last Saturday evening. A missed penalty, a goal disallowed for offside and countless other clear cut chances spurned meant that Portugal had to make do with a 0-0 draw.
Not only that but the Real Madrid star missed out on the chance to make history by being the first person to score in four successive European Championships.
Portugal find themselves joint second in the group but also in quite a precarious position, a third failure to win at Euro 2016 could mean either Iceland or Austria pipping them to second in the group.
Meaning that Cristiano and Co would then be at the mercy of the 4 best 3rd place teams where you would imagine that 3 points may not be enough.
Their opponents Hungary only need a point to make sure of qualifying for the knockout stages. They were impressive in their opener against Austria while fortunate to pick up a draw against Iceland last time around
It was an 87th minute own goal which gave them a share of the points against Iceland but more importantly put them top of the Group F. That moment of misery also got 40 year old Gabor Kodaly off the hook after his goalkeeping blunder subsequently lead to the Icelandic opener
With the way this group is there is even a possibility of Hungary losing Tonight and still progressing to the Round of 16. If they do fail to pick up a point then they will be frantically looking for a calculator to see if they have done enough
But Bernd Stock and his men will not want to see be reliant on anyone else to see them through and after picking up 4 points from their first two matches then why would they
Although Tonight I am going to plump for a Portugal win as surely they and more importantly Cristiano Ronaldo have to come alive at some point in this tournament. A Portugal win while Hungary hope other results go their way.
