Substitute Goncalo Ramos’s headed goal edged Portugal into the last 16 of the World Cup on Friday NZT after a gripping contest with Croatia.<\/p>\n
Ramos connected with a superb pass from Rafael Leao in the fourth minute of stoppage time to snuff out a Croatia team which had created the lion’s share of the chances in sapping evening heat in Toronto.<\/p>\n
In a dramatic ending, Croatia thought they had equalised in the dying seconds but Josko Gvardiol’s goal was chalked off for offside.<\/p>\n
The Croatians were left stunned by the decision, while Portugal’s players celebrated.<\/p>\n
Cristiano Ronaldo played his role in the victory, stroking home a penalty that cancelled out Ivan Perisic’s opener.<\/p>\n
It was Ronaldo’s first ever goal in the knockout phase of the World Cup and his remarkable international career will have another chapter when Portugal face Spain in Dallas on Monday.<\/p>\n
Perisic had stunned the Portuguese by slotting the ball under the advancing Portugal goalkeeper Diogo Costa in the 53rd minute.<\/p>\n
Within minutes, Ronaldo had the ball in the net after controlling a long pass, but his effort was disallowed for offside.<\/p>\n
But Portugal got level when Renato Veiga was grabbed by Croatia’s Nikola Vlasic in the penalty area and after a VAR check, the referee pointed to the spot.<\/p>\n
Ronaldo stepped up to convert the penalty with ease, hitting the ball straight down the middle of the goal and pumping his fists with joy afterwards.<\/p>\n
In a pulsating game, Manchester City forward Mateo Kovacic’s low shot was pushed onto a post by ‘keeper Costa’s fingertips.<\/p>\n
Still Croatia pushed and Peta Sucic had the ball in the net but the assistant referee’s flag was up for a clear offside.<\/p>\n
Ronaldo was withdrawn in the 81st minute to allow Ruben Neves to come on.<\/p>\n
Croatia continued to create more chances than their opponents and Mario Pasalic came so close to winning the game with a header at the far post, but it bounced just wide.<\/p>\n
But when Ramos connected, the net bulged and Portugal were through.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Substitute Goncalo Ramos’s headed goal edged Portugal into the last 16 of the World Cup on Friday NZT…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-508033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}