Portugal cruised to a 3-0 victory over Türkiye in Group F action at Euro 2024 on Saturday.
Bernardo Silva opened the scoring with his first goal of the tournament in the 21st minute and Portugal doubled the lead seven minutes later after a miscommunication between the Türkiye defense.
João Cancelo intercepted a header in midfield and worked a quick give-and-go with Bruno Fernandes to advance the ball into the Türkiye end. As he broke upfield with Cristiano Ronaldo looking to make a run, Cancelo misread it and played a pass forward to no one, turning it over with four Türkiye players around the ball.
As the Portugal players reacted to the poor decision, and Ronaldo doing so in animated fashion, Türkiye’s Samet Akaydin attempted to play the ball back to goalkeeper Altay Bayindir, who was not expecting the pass.
Disaster struck and it was 2-0 Portugal.
That was the sixth own goal of the Euros through a little over a week of action. That would stand for the tournament lead over the two scored by Georgia’s Georges Mikautadze, Slovakia’s Ivan Schranz and Germany’s Jamal Musiala.
Fernandes would put home a Ronaldo pass off a 2-on-0 in the 56th minute to put Portugal up 3-0.
Portugal improves to 2-0-0 and has clinched a spot in the Round of 16 as Group F winners. Their final game is Wednesday against Georgia (0-1-1) before they face the third-place team from either Group A, B or C in the knockout phase of the tournament.
Türkiye (1-0-1) remains on 3 points with their final game against Czechia (0-1-1). They now need to beat Czechia or see Georgia lose or draw with Portugal in order to secure passage to the knockout round at the Euros for only the third time.
Source Agencies
