There was a thriller on Friday night but it came from of all places, Belfast where Northern Ireland were playing host to Portugal.
Northern Ireland pretty much have no hope of qualifying for the World Cup in Brazil while Portugal had everything to play for with Capello's Russia pushing hard for a World Cup spot.
However, things didn't go to script for the favourites with Northern Ireland leading Portugal 2-1 early in the 2nd half after Helder Postiga - IDIOT - got himself sent off for headbutting early in the first half.
Up stepped Ronaldo who scored two headers and then capped off his hat-trick with his trademark free kick - this following the sending-off of Northern Ireland's Kyle Lafferty.
It was quite possibly one of the greatest solo performances ever by a player on the international stage and probably the greatest solo performance by a Portuguese player at this level since Eusebio's 4 goals against North Korea in the 1966 World Cup.
Credit to Ronaldo, who is often despised by England and non Man United fans, he does often produce the goods in the red and green which you can't really say the same for a lot of other apparent stars.
Anyway, here are some other great international performances in WC Qualifiers.
2001 Michael Owen's hat-trick
2001 David Beckham's free kick
2006 Theo Walcott's hat-trick
No comments:
Post a Comment