Scotland found themselves as the visiting opposition against Portugal in Sunday evening’s UEFA Nations League game. While Scotland took a shock early lead, Scottish hearts were broken as Ronaldo scored a late goal to secure a Portugal win.
Just 7 minutes into the first half, Scott McTominay scored the first goal of the match. Finding his niche as he was not tightly marked in the box, McTominay managed to get into the box in time to intercept a cross from McLean with a header to score the match’s opening goal.
It wasn’t smooth sailing for Scotland from there, but they held it together well throughout the first half, with Scottish keeper James Gunn showing an admirable performance. Portugal made 16 shots after McTominay’s opening goal before the half-time break, none of which were able to find the back of the net.
Scotland Struggles to Hold on Through Second Half
Outside of the magnificent header from McTominay, it had seemed that most of the first half seemed to be played almost entirely on Scotland’s side of the field. After the break, the situation didn’t seem to change as Portugal found more and more chances to break through the Scottish defense.
Christiano Ronaldo was brought on to bolster the Portuguese attack for the second half, with ultimately game-winning results. In another 2-1 victory for Portugal less than a week ago, Christiano Ronaldo scored against Croatia, securing him a landmark 900th career goal.
Early on in the second half, Rafael Leao seemed to play havoc with the Scottish defense constantly. Creating 5 chances for both himself and his teammates in quick succession, it wasn’t long before he assisted in Portugal’s equalizing goal.
A subdued cutback from Leao found the way to Fernandes. While Scottish keeper James Gunn was able to get a palm to the ball, it wasn’t enough to stop it, and Bruno Fernandes scored the equalizing goal to make the score 1-1 in the 54th minute.
Ronaldo Scores Game-Winning Goal
With the teams back on level terms, Scotland tried desperately to try to hold on. Another attack led into Portugal’s half found McTominay thundering a shot into the midriff of Diogo Costa, though ultimately to no avail.
This seemed to be the best chance that Scotland had to try and retake control of the match, after which Portugal was back to aggressively pushing attacks into the Scottish half.
Scotland held on for as long as they could against the Portuguese barrage and for a long time, it seemed they may hold the draw. However, in the 88th minute of the match, Mendes sent a cross into the box that was ultimately intercepted and scored by Christiano Ronaldo. Marking both his 901st goal across his club and international career and his 132nd goal for Portugal, Ronaldo celebrated the game-winning strike jubilantly as Scottish hearts were broken just minutes from the end of the game.
Interestingly, sports gambling at Bovada priced Ronaldo at -250 odds to score or assist a goal in the match. Hence, his late strike proved to be a profitable moment for those who backed the Portuguese legend. This wouldn’t come as a surprise for hard-core fans who already predicted similar results.
After the match
Speaking in the post-match interviews, Scotland’s Head Coach, Steve Clarke, expressed his disappointment: “Obviously disappointed – it looked for a long period that we’d get something from the game. The effort and the quality the players put in, they deserved to get something.”
However, later on in the interview, he showed that despite the disappointing results for Scotland lately, Clarke believes there is a lot of optimism to be found from the way the team is currently playing.
“The end goal is to qualify for a tournament. It would be nice to get some points, not to concede late goals but this is the level we’re at because we have been a good team. There’s been a lot of positives… if you ignore the results.”
Both the Scotland and Portugal teams will play again in the A1 group for the UEFA Nations League on Saturday 12th October. Scotland will be playing at home against Croatia in their fixture. With both teams having just come off a 2-1 loss to Portugal, Croatia is the favorite with both pundits and betting sites alike. This isn’t a surprise, as Scotland is currently on their longest winless run in history in their last 8 competitive fixtures, in which they lost 5 matches while drawing 3. This of course has been reflected in the odds as they go into the Croatia match as the underdogs.
Those interested in betting on football may want to take advantage of Scotland’s odds if they feel they will finally end their winless run, or maybe place a safer bet on the Croatian team, which appears to be in pretty strong form.
Elsewhere, Portugal’s next match is as the visiting team against Poland played on the same day as Scotland faces Croatia. Having just had two consecutive 2-1 victories, Portugal will certainly be entering the Poland game with strong odds to win the match, despite the perceived disadvantage of being the away team.
Keep your eyes on the odds for the upcoming matches and any possible changes in the lineup as these appear to be big paydays for sports bettors. As always the odds will be made available by the prominent bookmakers as we get closer to the matchday. You can view Head-To-Head information, pre-match summaries, and other stats at Bovada’s soccer betting section which should help you make predictions more analytical.
The published material expresses the position of the author, which may not coincide with the opinion of the editor.