A window to the past: Ronaldo did not score against the Czech team, his goal decided the Euro 2012 quarter-final

The Czech team lost 0:2 to Portugal in the elite group A of the UEFA Nations League in Lisbon. The rematch for the elimination in the quarter-finals of Euro 2012 after a 0:1 defeat, which was the last match between the two teams, was therefore not a success. Ronaldo scored a header in the 79th minute.

The Czech team didn’t go to the European Championship 2012 with big ambitions, the charges of coach Michal Bílek didn’t play attractive football, they lacked personalities. However, they were slowly maturing in the new leader of the domestic scene, Viktoria Plzeň. Midfielder Petr Jiráček and striker Václav Pilař, as it turned out at the Euro, turned into the team’s driving forces.

The main group didn’t seem to be difficult – home Poland, Russia, Greece. After the initial loss to Russia 1::4 (Pilař reduced it to 1::2), the optimism sank into the permafrost of the Siberian tundra, but the victory over Greece 2::1 (Jiráček, Pilař) and the sensational defeat of home Poland 1::0 (Jiráček) pushed the Czech team into the quarterfinals.

There, Portugal awaited with the phenomenal Christian Ronaldo in attack, although at the time he boasted only one Ballon d’Or for the best footballer in the world (2008), adding four more to his personal hall of fame later.

He became the man who determined the outcome. “The game was slowly going into extra time, but then Cristiano Ronaldo decided with his head that there would be no extra time,” recalls Czech stopper Tomas Sivok.

“It was a bitter end for us. Portugal was the better team, but if it had gone to extra time, anything could have happened and we could have advanced to the semi-finals,” he recalls, saying that a medal – at least a bronze – was a close call.

Even then, Ronaldo was already notoriously hungry for goals, but he knew how to wait patiently for the right moment. “You don’t know about him for sixty minutes and suddenly he strikes,” Sivok says of his danger.

“It’s like in the game with us ten years ago. No draughts, just one wayward shot as far as I can remember. Then the centre came, he got a header and cleared it,” he says of his goal.

The medal hopes were extinguished.

Ronaldo scored twice against Switzerland in the Nations League, but the Czech defence did not allow him to score again in a Portugal jersey (he has a record 117 goals).

He only registered a yellow card for a criminal foul on Jemelka, for which he should have clearly been sent off according to the rules. But the Slovenian referee did not find the courage.

Ronaldo has a slightly different position in world football..

Source: UEFA