A double by Bruno Fernandes gave Portugal a 2-0 victory over Uruguay on Monday and an early ticket to the round of 16 of the World Cup in Qatar-2022, while the ‘Celeste’ makes it difficult to pass to the crosses.
The Manchester United midfielder opened the account by chance at 54 minutes, when he looked for Cristiano Ronaldo with a cross, who jumped to head but did not touch the ball and with that movement disconcerted a slow light blue goalkeeper Sergio Rochet.
At 90+3, with a penalty indicated by the VAR by the hand of Josema Giménez, Bruno Fernandes settled the match, which was played at the Lusail stadium in Doha in front of 88,668 spectators, for the second date of Group H.
In this way Portugal reached six points and joined France and Brazil in the round of 16, while Uruguay was extremely compromised with a single unit.
Earlier, Ghana beat South Korea 3-2 to move up to second place with three points.
Ghana will face Uruguay on Friday at the close of the group stage in the ideal scenario to take revenge for the remembered defeat on penalties (4-2) against Celeste in the quarterfinals of South Africa-2010.
A draw will suffice for the Africans, while La Celeste can only win and hope that South Korea doesn’t beat the ‘Seleçao’ and, if they do, by what goal difference, since the Asians have -1 and the South Americans -2.
barren domain
The European eleven gradually took possession of the ball, with an imperial William Carvalho in the middle of the field.
The 30-year-old central midfielder, born in Luanda (Angola), and who plays for Betis, recovered Celeste’s tepid attempts to progress and absorbed Fede Valverde.
La Celeste lay down close to their area and gave the initiative to their rival, in which Cristiano Ronaldo was mobile, but was not well assisted.
Joao Felix and Bruno Fernandes did not appear either and then the process became monotonous, announced.
Portugal had the ball, they moved it from one side to the other in the middle of the field but they did not step on the Charrúa area.
La Celeste felt comfortable, crouched waiting for her opportunity. This reached 32, when Rodrigo Bentancur took a ball in his field, was fired towards the Portuguese area, left two rivals on the way in the crescent and goalkeeper Diogo Costa made him smaller and covered his shot.
The Tottenham midfielder, who received a yellow card after six minutes from the Iranian referee Alireza Faghani, commanded the pressure on the Portuguese exit and led them to play backwards.
Five minutes later the winger Nuno Mendes, who had been in doubt due to an ailment, fell to the floor alone and asked for the change.
Mendes, who left the field crying straight to the locker room, was replaced by Raphael Guerreiro.
Bruno appeared
About 50 minutes into the game, the match was stopped because an individual with a rainbow flag and a T-shirt with a message in favor of Iranian women and against the Russian invasion of Ukraine invaded the field of play, AFP journalists found.
After running across the pitch twice, he was detained by stadium security and calmly escorted by agents, the journalists confirmed.
This event occurs in a context of strong criticism of Qatar, organizer of the World Cup, for breaching fundamental rights, especially in relation to the LGBT+ community, in a country where homosexuality is prosecuted in court.
That seemed to wake up Bruno Fernandes, who four minutes later, almost accidentally, opened the scoring and led Portugal to the round of 16.
