The Portuguese national football team qualified for the 2022 World Cup, by defeating North Macedonia 2-0 in the final of the third track in the European play-off separator in the qualifiers.
Sharjah 24 – Asaad Khalil:
The Portuguese national football team ended the adventure of the North Macedonia national team in the European qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup with a precious 2-0 victory in the third track final of the European play-off separator in the qualifiers.
And the Portuguese national team booked its place in the finals, deservedly to become the eleventh representative of the European continent in the Qatar World Cup.
Manchester United star Bruno Fernandes scored the two goals in the 32nd and 65th minutes, raising his tally in the current qualifiers to three goals and his tally with the Portuguese national team in general to eight goals.
The Portuguese national team became the 23rd team to reserve its place in the Qatar World Cup after the Qatari national team representing the host country and the teams of Germany, Denmark, France, Belgium, Croatia, Spain, Serbia, England, Switzerland and the Netherlands from the European continent, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador and Uruguay from South America, Iran, South Korea, Japan and Saudi Arabia from Asia, and the Ghanaian and Senegalese teams from Asia. Africa.
The Portuguese national team is playing for the sixth consecutive time and the eighth in its history, noting that the best result of the team was in the 1966 edition in England when it finished third.
And now there is an opportunity for the famous Portuguese star, Cristiano Ronaldo, “37 years”, to participate in the finals for the fifth time in a row, knowing that the player started his international career with the Portuguese national team in 2003 and participated in the World Cup for the first time in the 2006 edition in Germany.
On the other hand, North Macedonia failed to reach the World Cup for the first time in its history, as it had never participated in the World Championship.
The North Macedonia team set off a heavy-caliber surprise in the semi-finals of this separating supplement, as it won a 1-0 victory over its Italian host, the European champion, to prevent it from qualifying for the World Cup for the second consecutive edition, but the Macedonian team fell in the last test today and bid farewell to the qualifiers empty-handed despite A good match against Portugal.
The North Macedonia team was confident at the start of the match and was a stubborn opponent of its Portuguese counterpart, but the latter managed to take advantage of a defensive error from the visitors and scored the goal in the 32nd minute.
The goal came after a wrong pass from Macedonian captain Stefan Ristovsky, to cut the ball by Bruno Fernandes and launch a quick counter-attack during which he passed the ball to Ronaldo, who returned the ball to him with an elaborate through pass on the edge of the penalty area, and Fernandes shot it into the goal.
The two teams failed to change the result over the remainder of the first half, despite the Portuguese’s continued superiority after the goal.
In the second half, the Portuguese team continued to excel, despite the Macedonian attempts to return in the result.
Fernandez eliminated the Macedonian team’s hopes of a draw when he scored the second goal for Portugal in the 65th minute.
The goal came as a result of a quick counter-attack by the Portuguese team, in which Otavio passed the ball to Diogo Jota on the left side.