Portugal, sparked by Cristiano Ronaldo's brace again three days after his brace against Liechtenstein, recorded its second win in as many Euro 2024 qualifying matches with a 6-0 win in Luxembourg on Sunday.
After 72 hours of an easy first match (4-0) in Lisbon, the Lusitanian team did not give its host any chance, which killed all the suspense in the first quarter of an hour.
From the ninth minute, Cristiano Ronaldo took advantage of Nuno Mendes' header and all he had to do was push the ball past Anthony Morris.
Six minutes later, Joao Felix doubled the lead with a header from the Chelsea striker following a perfect cross pass from Bernardo Silva (2-0, minute 15).
An assister (for the 25th time in selection), the latter became a top scorer three minutes later by also eliminating the local team with a header.
The demonstration turned into humiliation after half an hour with Ronaldo taking care of his statistics before giving up his place at the hour mark after scoring his 121st and 122nd goals in 198 international matches! His tenth and eleventh matches are against Luxembourg, his favorite victims.
The Al-Nasr striker left the lights at the end of the match to Otavio and Rafael Leao, who scored the winning goal in the last minutes.
It seems that the tactical plan drawn up by the new Spanish coach, Roberto Martinez, has already been absorbed by a team that relies on rebounds after being eliminated in the quarter-finals of the 2022 World Cup.
The 3-5-2, rarely used during Fernando Santos' eight-year coaching spell, with Ronaldo and Joao Felix up front, makes excellent use of the width of the pitch to split up lower defensive teams.
Luxembourg probably did not expect to be so choked. Coach Luke Holtz's team, which has been constantly progressing in recent years, maintained five matches without defeat after meeting with Bulgaria, Hungary and Turkey.
In a group in which the 2016 European champion is considered the most likely candidate, the Luxembourg national team seeks to join the struggle for second place in the qualifiers against Bosnia, Iceland and Slovakia.
To do that, we will have to recover from the blow suffered on Sunday by the Portuguese having not won their first two European Championship qualifying matches since 1996.
