“We’ll approach the semis in the same way we’ve done so far”.
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The 18-year-old ran at the Poland defence before exchanging a pass with Nani and drilling a left footed shot into the corner of the goal via a deflection off Grzegorz Krychowiak. “We played some very good football but this defeat hurts”.
Poland had converted all five of their penalties in knocking out Switzerland in the last round, also after a 1-1 draw, but could not repeat the feat.
It may not matter which individuals play best as long as the results continue to come for manager Fernando Santos’ side.
Ronaldo was the first to take the penalty kick after the two sides were deadlocked at 1-1 in extra-time on Thursday, reports Xinhua.
Portugal have now made it through to the semi-finals without winning a match in the regulation 90 minutes at the finals, after they drew all three of their group matches, before defeating Croatia in the round of 16 thanks to an extra-time victor from Ricardo Quaresma.
Teenager Renato Sanches had a coming-of-age outing for Portugal, scoring with a stunning shot from distance to cancel out Robert Lewandowski’s early goal for Poland, and then converting his penalty in Thursday’s shootout. While those teams play tonight, Ronaldo spoke after the game and admitted that anything is possible now progress is confirmed.
Robert Lewandowski scored the opener for Poland less than two minutes after the game started before Renato Sanches levelled just before half-time.
German referee Felix Brych waved away Ronaldo’s claims for a penalty on 31 minutes despite replays suggesting the Real Madrid star was bundled over by centre-back Michal Pazdan as he went to meet a cross.
This time, he strode forward to take the first one, fired the ball emphatically into the net and set his team on their way to a fourth semi-final appearance in their last five European Championship tournaments.
Maybe no one gave us a chance, but we are already in the semifinals.
Sanchez struck from the edge of the box with his weaker left foot to cancel Lewandowski opener as early as the second minute. We let them take over the game for a bit and weren’t able to control [Arkadiusz] Milik, so I spoke to Renato Sanches to change things and asked Nani to drop a bit deeper. The move for the goal turned out that way, but the team has been playing well.
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“Pepe was enormous. The first few mins didn’t go our way; it was an experience for our players as they have reached this stage for the first time, some of their heads are up in the clouds as they are dreaming about what’s happened”. “I knew it was going to be a goal”.
