Cristiano Ronaldo, Joao Felix and Rafael Leao all scored, but Portugal had to sweat out a narrow win over Ghana as their defence wobbled.
— Cristiano Ronaldo’s fifth and probably final World Cup began with a win after Portugal beat Ghana 3-2 at Stadium 974 on Thursday.
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Ronaldo, who officially departed Manchester United on Tuesday, scored with a second-half penalty. And although Andre Ayew made it 1-1, Portugal took control with two goals in two minutes from Joao Felix and Rafael Leao. Osman Bukari came off the bench to make it 3-2, but Portugal held on, despite a late score when goalkeeper Diogo Costa nearly conceded a bizarre chance in the finals second of injury time.
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It’s perhaps obvious that when you’ve got attacking players like Ronaldo, Felix, Leao, Bruno Fernandes and Bernardo Silva, you’re going to have no problem scoring goals. It was lucky Portugal got three against Ghana.
The Black Stars, who scraped through qualifying after a playoff with Nigeria, don’t usually score many but they still got two here, first through Ayew and then Bukari. Bukari’s late header didn’t count for much after Portugal had gone 3-1 up, but it was still enough for Ronaldo, at that point sat on the substitutes bench, to throw his hands up in despair.
Portugal have the forward players to match any other team at this World Cup, but they are going to struggle defensively against better teams than Ghana if they keep having lapses in concentration at the back. That was best summed up in the final minute of stoppage time when Costa rolled the ball out and was almost robbed by Inaki Williams.
It looked like it might be one of those frustrating nights for Ronaldo — the type of which he’s had plenty of at Man United this season — but in the end he got his goal to become the first men’s player to score at five World Cups.
His evening started with a clumsy foul after just 90 seconds, and before 15 minutes were on the clock, he had fluffed a good chance from Otavio’s pass because of a heavy touch and also missed with a header at the back post. He would have been forgiven for thinking it wasn’t his day when he had a goal ruled out after 31 minutes for a foul on Alexander Djiku and then took a heavy knock on his right ankle from Seidu Alidu.
