Ronaldo scores a brilliant hat-trick to seal a berth for Portugal in the 2014 World Cup finals. The two-legged tie between Portugal and Sweden ended with the scoreline reading 4-2 in favour of the Portuguese.
Portugal went into the match with a slender lead of 1 goal which Ronaldo scored in the first match in Lisbon. Sweden needed some special performance from Zlatan Ibrahimovic to overcome the deficit and book a place in the finals. But he failed to impress in the first half as the Portuguese defense stood firm against any kind of threat from the hosts.
As the game moved on to the second half it got its life back as Christiano Ronaldo began to show his mobility down the right which thee Swedish defenders found too hot to handle and opened the scoring for Portugal in the 50th headed home a Kim Kallstrom cross to level the proceedings in the 68th second of the match through a well-taken free-kick to put Sweden in the lead in the 72nd crowd erupted into jubilation. But it was not a long lasting one. Ronaldo made sure that Portugal did not have to wait long as he scored for the second time in the 77th two minutes after that putting the final nail in the coffin of the Swedish dreams. Portugal then played out the remaining time without much difficulty much to the disappointment of the home crowd.
Portugal goes into the World Cup finals for a straight fourth time. It was a sad night for Ibrahimovic as he could not pull his team up to do something special when it mattered most. At 32 years of age Ibra’s dream of playing another world cup could be well but over. The World Cup will surely be incomplete without such a prolific striker like Ibrahimovic.
Tags: Brazil world cup Christiano Ronaldo FIFA world cup 2014 Ibrahimovic Kim Kallstrom Portugal Portugal beat Sweden Portugal in World Cup 2014 Ronaldo Ronaldo scores hat-trick World Cup 2014 Zlatan Ibrahimovic
