Cristiano Ronaldo shone and scored in his 200th match to help Portugal win 1-0 against Iceland in the EURO 2024 qualifiers.
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| Cristiano Ronaldo (in white shirt) scores for the Portuguese team. (Source: AFP) |
Portugal had to work very hard to win 1-0 in their away match against Iceland in Group J of the EURO 2024 qualifiers.
Cristiano Ronaldo became the hero when he scored the only goal of the match to bring 3 points to Portugal.
In the 89th minute, Goncalo Inacio headed the ball for Ronaldo to run down and quickly finish, defeating goalkeeper Runar Runarsson.
The referee immediately blew his whistle when he thought the Portuguese player was offside but then recognized the goal thanks to VAR technology.
On the day he set a Guinness World Record for the number of appearances for the national team, Ronaldo helped Portugal win all 3 points to continue to top Group J with 12 absolute points, exactly two points more than competitor Slovakia.
Slovakia beat Liechtenstein 1-0 in this series. They are Portugal's next opponent but the two teams will not have the chance to meet until September.
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| Cristiano Ronaldo (holding flowers) receives Guinness record. (Source: Getty Images) |
As for Ronaldo personally, he has officially reached the milestone of 200 career matches for the Portuguese national team, surpassing the old record of 196 matches held by Bader Al-Mutawa for the Kuwait national team.
The goal against Iceland in this match became even more meaningful for the star who turned 38 this year.
This is also Ronaldo's 123rd goal for Portugal since his debut in August 2003 in a friendly against Kazakhstan.
123 goals for the national team is also another record for Ronaldo, who has faced 70 different international opponents since making his debut 20 years ago.
Nearly 20 years have passed, CR7 has participated in every major international tournament since EURO 2004 (including 5 EUROs and 5 World Cups), winning EURO 2016 and the Nations League in 2019.
With his form and desire not stopping, Cristiano Ronaldo will certainly want to have more matches with Portugal to conquer new milestones in his career.
Ronaldo became the first player in the sport to reach 200 international appearances.
This is a milestone that no other player has ever reached in the history of football. In fact, Ronaldo only broke his own record.
Not only has he played the most, Ronaldo is also the player with the most goals in history at the national team level (122 goals), 13 more than second-placed Ali Daei and 19 more than Lionel Messi.
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