This year’s first hat trick! Portugal beat Switzerland and advanced to the quarter-finals!
In the World Cup round of 16 knockout match, Portugal and Switzerland made their final appearance. Before the start of the game, the most striking thing was that Cristiano Ronaldo did not appear on the international starting list for the first time in 14 years. It is reported that there were some conflicts with coach Fernando Santos. But what is surprising is that Portugal played a crazy performance instead, defeating the Swiss defense by 6-1.
Looking back on this game, the biggest highlight is the young teenager Gonçalo Ramos who made his debut as a starter for the first time in his career, because he successfully broke the net in the 17th, 51st, and 67th minutes of the game, scoring the first “hat-trick” of this World Cup. In addition, Portugal relied on Pepe, Raphael Guerreiro, and Rafael Leão to score one goal each. Among them, Pepe scored a new record and became the oldest player in the history of the World Cup knockout. Although Switzerland scored the Portuguese goal in the 58th minute by Manuel Akanji, it still couldn’t change the ending of being beaten by Portugal.
Although Cristiano Ronaldo came off the bench in the 73rd minute, it did not affect Portugal’s strong promotion to the quarterfinals after 16 years. Cristiano Ronaldo has also become the only player in the history of the Portuguese team to advance to the quarterfinals twice. In the last 16 knockout matches in the past 88 years, only Italy’s 7-1 victory over the United States in 1934 scored more goals than Portugal in this game.