Portugal vs Austria a few quick thoughts
Dan Tracey
June 19, 2016
1,656 Views
- When it’s not your night, it’s just not your night
- Step forward Cristiano Ronaldo
- After his comments about Iceland having a ‘small time mentality’ it’s quite ironic that he then failed to score again last night
- I doubt you’ll see many people outside of Portugal having too much sympathy for him though
- It was once again an off night for the Real Madrid star as he drew another blank in his bid to become the first man to score in 4 successive European Championships
- From a neutral’s point of view it was actually one of the more interesting 0-0’s that you will see mainly because it was the schadenfreude of Cristiano Ronaldo’s continual failure to score
- He was presented with a perfect early opportunity as he was left unmarked in the box but he flashed his side footed effort wide of the post
- It was Nani who then had the best of the rest of the chances in the first half with his header cannoning off the post
- Austria were doing their best to withhold the siege
- The only real respite they had was when Pepe hauled down David Alaba just outside the box
- Pepe was unsurprisingly awarded a yellow card and Alaba’s free kick from a difficult angle was well cleared by Vieirinha
- Half time it was 0-0, the question now was whether or not Austria could hold on for another 45 minutes
- Robert Almer was being kept busy but he made countless saves to make sure that Portugal did not go ahead
- With every save that he made from Ronaldo the personal anguish levels increased
- But then there was seemingly a chink in the Austrian armour
- Martin Hinteregger hauled Ronaldo to the ground in the area in what was a blatant penalty
- Surely this was the moment when Ronaldo became the man to score in four tournaments
- No
- His effort bounce back off the post much to the delight of Austrian and neutral fans watching the game
- But minutes later Ronaldo thought he had his moment when a header was glanced into the net
- Celebrations at last
- Only for the assistant referee to correctly give an offside decision
- Austria then bought on Tottenham’s Kevin Wimmer to squeeze out the game and that’s exactly what happened
- It may have been goalless but it wasn’t a dull 90 minutes
- Ronaldo bought this one on himself, it was summed up best by Alan Shearer trying not to laugh while giving his post match analysis
- If Portugal beat Hungary then they could still very well top the group but it’s been quite a lukewarm tournament for them so far
- While Austria have to beat Iceland to have any hopes of progressing to the Round of 16
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