Ronaldo snubs media after Man of the Match award against Hungary

Nani failed to hide his relief after his goal in a thrilling 3-3 draw with Hungary helped Portugal through to the last 16 at Euro 2016 on Wednesday.

Ronaldo, Portugal’s most capped player, was just happy to deliver on a night when he broke two records. “He needs to score because he is a victor and a scorer, he feeds on goals”.

“This, I am sure, increased his confidence levels”, Santos said.

Key player Luka Modric missed the victory against Spain with a slight injury but is likely to provide a welcome boost to Croatia with his return.

Ronaldo opened his account in style with a deft backheel flick on 50 minutes before a bullet header 12 minutes later to twice equalize at the Stade de Lyon. Having registered his first goals in a convincing individual display, however, his former Manchester United team-mate Nani believes the three-times world player of the year will maintain that form for the remainder of the tournament. The group games provided some entertaining encounters, and saw the underdogs more than justify their place at the tournament. “The bottom line is that we wanted to qualify”.

Portugal could not see out the win in Ronaldo’s record-breaking 17th European Championship outing, which was a source of disappointment for the 31-year-old.

Hungary regained the lead just two minutes after the break as Dzsudzsak’s free-kick deflected off Andre Gomes in the Portugal wall, wrong-footing goalkeeper Rui Patricio in process.

But Portugal’s defence, marshalled by Pepe, looked less than solid in what was an obvious cause for concern for the manager. “Three times we were going home”, said Ronaldo, who set an all-time European Championship record of scoring in four different editions.

“We hadn’t been able to score and we weren’t convincing up front”.

“So Cristiano is better when in a position where he can attack the defence and the goal”.

“I have to compliment my team for a great performance, we played even better than in the opening two games and deserve to be in the knockout stages”, the German told a news conference.

“We tried to score the fourth goal, but maybe we were too cautious late on”.

The Portuguese will face Croatia on Saturday for a spot in the quarterfinals. I think the odds are 50-50 and whoever wins will make it through.

A pool of talent, Portugal are without a win so far at Euro-2016 resulting in the bad mood of the entire team.

“We made it and now we face a very good team”.