At 3:45 Beijing time on March 25, a focus battle in the World Preliminary Round European Play-offs was launched, with Portugal playing turkey at home – both teams were second in the group stage and had to enter the knockout round.
The division played two rounds of single-game knockout matches, and as Portugal were the second-best in all groups, they had the opportunity to play at home – if they could beat Turkey, Portugal could still meet the winner between Italy and North Macedonia at home, and still decide the final winner in a single-game decider.
In the world rankings, it is clear that the star-studded Portugal is clearly ahead of Turkey, with Portugal currently ranked eighth in the world, while Turkey is only ranked 39th.
You know, the last time Turkey competed in the World Cup finals was in 2002 when it was in the same group as the Chinese team to compete against South Korea and Japan. However, turkey's strength is not entirely represented by the rankings – it has a good record of 6 wins, 3 draws and 1 loss in this European qualifier group battle, accumulating 21 points to rank second in the group, including a home victory over the powerful Dutch team.
Since 1965, Portugal have won all five official matches against Turkey, scoring 11 goals and conceding only 1, including 3 European Championship games and 2 World Cup preliminaries. However, if you include the informal competition, Portugal and Turkey's last two meetings have been 1 win and 1 loss, scoring 3 goals and conceding 3 goals, so Turkey is not a good team to deal with.
The 37-year-old C Ronaldo started this game and will also make his 185th appearance for the national team – which also created the third in the history of the world football national team appearance!
The first half of the game began, with Portugal, which had home field advantage, strength and superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, lined up an attacking formation of 433, while the opponent Turkey responded with a more balanced attacking and defensive 442.
As soon as both sides came up, they were very fast, and on the whole, they all looked like mercury pouring down, and the offensive and defensive conversions were running at full speed.
In the 15th minute, Portugal moved left and right in front of the Turkish team penalty area, first a shot from B-seat, the ball hit the left goalpost, after rebounding to the right, quickly followed up to Otavio at the goal line, quickly shot out of the foot to score, Portugal took a 1-0 lead.
In the 37th minute, C Luo cooperated with his teammates and quickly inserted himself in front of the penalty area, but he tripped himself, so angry that C Luo raised his hands to the sky, and his mouth was full of words, looking very annoyed.
In the 42nd minute, Portugal's Otavio crossed diagonally from the middle and the ball reached the left side of the penalty area, and Jota met him, almost standing still, and the header swung hard to score: the score became 2-0! Portugal led by this score to the end of the first half.
In the 61st minute, C Luo picked up his teammates in a quick run to pass the ball, failed to receive the ball, and once again fell to the ground - in such a high-speed game in the whole game, C Luo also seems to be a little old, his speed is obviously not the same year, compared with the overall speed of the whole team, he is a little slower than half a beat, he fell twice and helplessly raised his hands, but also witnessed the gradual aging of this superstar...
In the 65th minute, the Turkish team pressed out the attack as a whole, and finally won a victory - Irmaz and Yundale collided with the wall, and finally Irmaz pulled back a goal: 1-2! Irmaz also scored six goals in 10 games of the World Cup.
After the goal, the Turkish team appeared more excited, the momentum also rose, the overall speed was faster than the Portuguese team, and the chances were significantly increased. In the 81st minute, Fonte kicked at Yundale's foot in the penalty area, and after being reminded by the video referee, the referee watched the video and pointed to the penalty spot, and turkey won a penalty opportunity, but Ilmaz actually kicked the ball high! - The Turks' luck is really bad!
In the third minute of stoppage time, substitute Nuñez scored another goal, and the score became 3-1!
In the end, Portugal, who escaped the disaster, won 3-1 at home to Turkey, getting the last chance to decide the qualification game - while the simultaneous Italian and North Macedonia matches have always been difficult to score, but in the 90th minute, North Macedonia scored a deadly goal to eliminate Italy, and Portugal will eventually play North Macedonia to decide who is the last qualifier.