Can Ronaldo win his first major international tournament?

Portugal are very close to the final of the Euro 2016, as the team has been extremely lucky so far. The Portuguese players managed to find their place in the Round of 16 after 3 draws in the group stage and qualified as the third team in their group. The performance of the team has been very unpersuasive and it seems that they had lots of problems in defence, having conceded 4 goals in the first 3 games.

Then, Portugal played against the strong team of Croatia in the last 16’s round in a match, which was considered as one of the most boring at the tournament. Ricardo Quaresma scored the only goal of the game after a mistake in Croatia’s defence in the 117th minute.

However, Fernando Santos’ players were also lucky in the quarterfinals, when they beat Poland on penalties, after finishing with a 1-1 draw in the regular time of the game. So, they are now waiting for the winner of the match between Wales and Belgium, who will be their next opponent at the European championship semi-finals. To summarize, Portugal reached the semi-finals after 5 draws (1 victory after the extra time and 1 after penalties). So, Portugal’s next opponent should be scared of the huge luck of the Portuguese!

To continue with, Rui Patricio has made some silly mistakes in Portugal’s goal, but he saved the decisive penalty against Poland and helped his team go through to the semi-finals. Ricardo Carvalho lost his place in the starting eleven after a very poor performance in defence. Nani is playing well, while Cristiano Ronaldo can’t show his real potential. The forward of Real Madrid missed several 100% goal-scoring chances, which is not typical for him. He scored only 2 goals in 5 matches (both against Hungary in the 3rd match of the group stage). Ronaldo could decide the last match against Poland in the regular time, but he missed 3 really good chances. So, he hasn’t still showed his real face and the fans can expect much more from him!

This is one of the last chances for the 31-year-old world class forward to win a major tournament with his country and that’s why you can feel the tension Ronaldo is feeling on the pitch. He has already played in the European championship final in 2004, but his team lost 0-1 to Greece and there is an opportunity something similar to happen again (if Iceland proceed to the final).
But why Portugal got so far in the tournament. They were quite lucky to finish in 3rd position in their group and this let them go to the weaker half of the tournament’s scheme. If they had finished in 2nd position, they would have been in Iceland’s place, facing England, France and so on.