90min

Twitter reacts to Portugal's World Cup masterclass after benching Cristiano Ronaldo

By Sean Walsh

Portugal put on a show
Portugal put on a show / Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/GettyImages
facebooktwitterreddit

Portugal staked their claim as one of the leading contenders to win the World Cup on Tuesday with an incredible 6-1 win against Switzerland in the last 16.

And perhaps best of all, they did so after dropping Cristiano Ronaldo to the bench. If you want to go and relive that madness, then click here and scroll away.

But we'll be focusing on what happened during and after the game here. To kick the match and the comedy off, Ronaldo's replacement - 21-year-old Goncalo Ramos - scored a belting goal at Yann Sommer's near post.

Soon after, Pepe became the oldest scorer in the history of the World Cup knockout stages with a bullet header from Bruno Fernandes' corner.

Shortly after the break, Ramos grabbed his second of the night with a tap-in at the near post, while Raphael Guerreiro finished off a fine counter in some style with a powerful finish into the roof of the net.

Switzerland managed to pull one back through Manuel Akanji, before Ramos bagged his hat-trick with a delectable dink over Sommer.

With a place in the quarter-finals in the bag, Fernando Santos threw on Ronaldo for the final 20 minutes or so. In typical Ronaldo fashion, he blasted a free-kick into the wall and scored a goal that was roughly 100 yards offside.

There was still time for Portugal to score a sixth goal, with Rafael Leao rounding off the scoring.

So after all that, for all the improvements that Portugal made without him, the focus is still on Ronaldo. Do you think he'll be bitter about it at all?

Home/World Cup