Portugal captain Cristiano Ronaldo seems to be showing the strain of his faltering Euro 2016 performances – after apparently throwing a reporter’s microphone into a river.
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Ronaldo also made a record 17th appearance in the European Championship and twice rescued his side from an embarrassing early exit in Lyon as surprise package Hungary ensured their place at the top of Group F.
But in another shock, Hungary scored five minutes later to take the lead again.
Portugal’s Nani has backed his team mate Cristiano Ronaldo to increase his goal tally in the European Championship and to guide his side to the latter stages of the competition in France.
Iceland’s winning goal in stoppage-time against Austria wrote another chapter of the tournament’s feel-good story and set up a round of 16 clash with England.
A CMTV reporter approached Ronaldo on Tuesday, a day before Portugal faced Hungary in their final group stage game of Euro 2016, and Ronaldo – using his superhuman strength – pried the microphone out of his hands and threw it into the lake.
“We know Ronaldo is a world class player and he can not be stopped every time”, he said.
The Real Madrid striker’s brace in Portugal’s 3-3 draw with Hungary didn’t improve the testy superstar’s mood.
The star turned more heroic later as Portugal, needing at least a draw to advance, trailed three times to a Hungary side that already was sure to advance.
In the heat and humidity of Lyon, the pent-up frustration simmering inside Ronaldo after two goalless games was visible to one and all.
This was Ronaldo at his most devastating in front of goal, rather than the withdrawn figure who failed to score from 22 attempts, including one missed penalty, in draws against Iceland and Austria.
Ronaldo scored goals two and three, one an impressive flick and the other a powerful header, to help his nation secure a tie with Croatia.
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Santos said on uefa.com: “This is what Cristiano is all about”. Obviously our objective was to win the game and finish first or second if possible but we’ve managed our objective, we’re through, so we should congratulate ourselves. Then we managed to score and we had chances to get more goals. We saw highlights of the Spain match and they are a tough team with very good players. After the first two matches, I said the team was playing well but couldn’t score.
