After scoring an extra-time victor in the round of 16 against Croatia, Quaresma sent his spot-kick past Lukasz Fabianski to give Portugal a semifinal against either Wales or Belgium, who play Friday, in Lyon on Wednesday. But he had a poor game and saw his penalty saved one-handed by Portugal’s goalkeeper Rui Patricio, allowing Quaresma to finish the job with the next kick in front of a stand packed with Polish fans.
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Lewandowski’s only goal of UEFA EURO 2016 came on Thursday as Poland suffered a 5:3 penalty shoot-out loss to Portugal in the quarter-finals.
But team captain Cristiano Ronaldo believes that won’t be an hindrance to winning his first worldwide trophy. “But you never know, under pressure people can change where they go (shoot) and unfortunately for us they took their penalties really well today”.
At the start of the match, the Poles took a 1-0 lead in the second minute as Kamil Grosicki broke free down the left side and delivered a cross to Bayern Munich star Robert Lewandowski, who fired the ball into the net for his first goal of the tournament.
Renato Sanches, the 18-year-old midfielder, leveled before the interval but neither team could force a victor.
Despite becoming the third-youngest scorer ever in the European Championship, Sanches played down his goal, calling it simply “a move that just turned out that way and I scored”.
Swinging a left leg at what could have been a match-winning goal in the last minutes of normal time but then missing the ball entirely: Was that Ronaldo or some impostor?
Buoyed by its penalty shootout victory over Switzerland in the previous round and with Lewandowski having opened his account, it played with a zest and freedom which belied the high stakes of the contest. He ran onto a lovely, lofted ball from Joao Moutinho and, not for the first time in this quarter-final, failed to connect with anything at all.
After the game, Ronaldo threw away his captain’s armband in frustration.
And he said the players remain confident, despite the fact they have yet to win a game inside 90 minutes on their way to the last four.
“We were the best team in a very hard match. We’ll approach the semis in the same way we’ve done so far”, he said.
Portugal, whose defence, superbly organised by Pepe, had largely kept Poland at bay after Robert Lewandowski’s early opener, ought to have won the game in normal time. Benfica full back Eliseu also came in for the injured Raphael Guerreiro.
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Neither team was able to make the breakthrough in regulation time, though, there were few talking points in extra time as the match was paused briefly due to an ill-advised pitch invader.
