Ronaldo eager to see Portugal crowned Euro 2016 champions

Portugal are through to the semi-finals of Euro 2016 without winning a game inside 90 minutes.

Portugal saw off Poland on penalties in Marseille on Thursday to reach the semifinals of Euro 2016. “We’re on the right road”, said Ronaldo.

18-year-old Renato Sanchez was the man of the match after display quality beyond his age and bemusing Ronaldo whose abysmal performance had nothing to write about.

Portugal had beaten Croatia in extra time in the last 16, and Ronaldo again failed to connect from close range in the opening exchanges. On Thursday he was particularly out of sorts, uncharacteristically squandering two good chances when he missed the ball altogether.

Portugal were not finished, but Ronaldo’s normally deadly finishing was amiss. Subsequently it was Poland who threatened more, but there would be no further scoring.

Fortunately, for Poland, while form is temporary, class is very much permanent.

Kamil Glik’s long ball found Grosicki in space to fire in a great cross at the back post that forced Patricio into action as Lewandowski hovered.

The defeat ends Poland’s best run at a European Championship.

Not since the 1982 World Cup had Poland reached the semifinals of a major tournament but it began this contest with real confidence.

“You need to have courage to take penalties in a shootout, you need to have personality and cold blood, and the players had that”.

But Portugal has been here before. As for Ronaldo, he is likely to face more criticism.

Sanches fired home his left foot shot from 20 metres for his first ever worldwide goal.

“For the penalties, the coach asked who wanted to shoot”.

Ronaldo endured a frustrating night in front of goal in his quest to match Michel Platini’s record of nine Euros finals goals.

Poland focussed on defence and the game faded out, with the second half finishing goalless and the game heading into extra time.

That fear soon became evident with neither team managing to create anything noteworthy until the closing moments.

“It hurts and it will hurt for a long time”, Lewandowski said as Ronaldo celebrated taking the latest step toward winning a first major global trophy with Portugal.

The Real Madrid superstar predicted no easy opponents.

Extra-time was simply a countdown to the penalty shoot-out that had increasingly looked the summit of both teams’ ambitions.

Penalties appeared inevitable as tiredness took its inevitable toll.

Goalkeeper Rui Patricio and Ricardo Quaresma were Portugal’s shootout heroes. We’re always trying to improve and that will be the case going into the future.

Sanches was good enough for Bayern Munich to pay £28m for his services when he was just 17 and had completed a single season of first-team football for Benfica.

“We’ve moved forward – this tournament has proven that”.