Munich: Cristiano Ronaldo scored twice as Portugal started their Euro 2020 campaign on a high thrashing Hungary 3-0 in a Group F encounter on Tuesday. Meanwhile, a Mats Hummels own goal gifted France three points against Germany.
With his two goals, Ronaldo also became the all-time top scorer at the European Championships. He has now 10 goals across five editions of the tournament. Ronaldo has scored 106 goals in 176 games for Portugal – only three short of the all-time international record, held by Iran’s Ali Daei.
What looked like the easiest fixture on paper, Hungary proved to be a nightmare for Portugal. With 60,000 fans cheering the home side in Budapest, Portugal found it hard to go past Hungary with Adam Szalai causing most of the troubles. Hungary even had an opener ruled out for off-side.
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However, it was not until the 84th minute when Borussia Dortmund’s Raphael Guerreiro broke the deadlock for Portugal. Ronaldo doubled the lead shortly afterward from the spot. His second goal came during the injury time which allowed him to surpass Michel Platini thus becoming Euros’ leading scorer. Portugal will face Germany next while Hungary host France.
On the other hand, Didier Deschamps’ France were lucky on the day courtesy of an unfortunate own goal by Mats Hummels. Hummels redirected a shot by Lucas Hernandez into his own net to give France the lead on 20 minutes.
Although France found the back of the net two more times with both of them being ruled off-side. The first one was when Paul Pogba’s fine assist was finished off with absolute finesse by Kylian Mbappe.
Mbappe was in action again when he squared to Karim Benzema who finished it off from a counter-attack. Germany struggled during the first half of the match but seemed to look better during the final half although the rear line of France did not allow them to take hold of the match.
