adminDOHA. – Before kick-off, all the talk was about Cristiano Ronaldo being dropped. By full-time, it was all about Goncalo Ramos.
The cameras were fixed on Portugal’s all-time record goalscorer, whose reaction to being replaced during his nation’s previous match had irritated manager Fernando Santos, as he took his place among the substitutes for the last-16 match against Switzerland at the World Cup in Qatar.
The bench was surrounded by photographers desperate to snap a picture of a discontented Ronaldo, absent from a Portugal starting XI at a major tournament for the first time since 2008.
But attention soon switched to the action on the pitch, as his 21-year-old replacement seized his chance with a wonderful hat-trick in a statement 6-1 victory.
When Portugal coach Santos took the decision to demote Ronaldo to the bench for the match, he could not have hoped for a better outcome.
Not only did his side score six goals in a World Cup knockout match, but the young man he called upon to step up delivered three goals on the biggest night of his career.
At 21 years and 169 days old, Ramos is the youngest player to score a World Cup hat-trick since Hungary’s Florian Albert in 1962.
While Ronaldo, with eight World Cup goals, is yet to score in six knockout appearances for Portugal at the tournament, Ramos already has three.
Ramos, who developed through Benfica’s youth system, had played a total of just 33 minutes for Portugal in three appearances for his country before facing Switzerland on Tuesday.
That included one goal in a 23-minute friendly appearance against Nigeria in November, before a two-minute and an eight-minute cameo in the group games against Ghana and Uruguay respectively.
He then remained an unused substitute as an already qualified Portugal lost to South Korea.
However, given his first senior international start in the knockout stages of the World Cup, he delivered a performance that suggested he had been doing this for years.
With 14 goals and six assists in 21 games for Benfica this season – including seven goals in his past six league appearances – Ramos is certainly not a player short on confidence at the moment.
But he could have only dreamed of how his first World Cup start would play out.
He is the first player to score a hat-trick on his first World Cup start since Germany’s Miroslav Klose, the all-time leading men’s World Cup goalscorer, in 2002, and he is Portugal’s second-youngest scorer in World Cup history, after Ronaldo in 2006.
And, after this spectacular display, he will feel he has done everything he possibly can to secure a starting place for the quarter-final against Morocco. – BBC Sport.
Online Reporter