Cristiano Ronaldo scored a stunning late goal as Portugal beat Iceland 1-0 on Tuesday to extend their perfect record in Euro 2024 qualifying Group J on an historic night for the forward who became the first player to make 200 international appearances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ronaldo already held the record for most international appearances when he surpassed Kuwait\u2019s Bader Al-Mutawa\u2019s, who held the record of 196 matches, during Portugal’s Euro 2024 qualifier against Liechtenstein in March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Portugal struggled to break the deadlock against Iceland but stepped up the pressure after Willum Thor Willumsson was sent off for a second yellow card after a rough tackle on substitute Goncalo Inacio in the 81st minute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ronaldo had to wait two minutes to celebrate the winner as the referee first ruled out his close-range strike in the 89th minute for offside, but the goal was given after the VAR replay showed he was fractionally onside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was Ronaldo’s 123rd goal for Portugal, extending his record as the all-time leading international goalscorer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The result left Portugal top with 12 points, two ahead of second-placed Slovakia, who won 1-0 away to Liechtenstein earlier on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Portugal started more aggressively but Iceland slowly took control and had two great chances to lead in the first half through defender Victor Palsson and full-back Hordur Magnusson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Portugal responded after the break and gradually got into the game, with Ronaldo’s goal securing the points.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cristiano Ronaldo scored a stunning late goal as Portugal beat Iceland 1-0 on Tuesday to extend their perfect record in Euro 2024 qualifying Group J on an historic night for the forward who became the first player to make 200 international appearances. Ronaldo already held the record for most international appearances when he surpassed Kuwait\u2019s […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":5836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5835"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}