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World Cup: Ronaldo on the bench, Gonçalo Ramos offers himself a hat-trick and defeats Switzerland

In the 73rd minute, the Portuguese supporters rose to greet… the entry into play of Cristiano Ronaldo. They took the opportunity to cheer the hero of the evening: Gonçalo Ramos, the Benfica striker, author of three of his team’s six goals who easily dominated a very pale Swiss formation (6-1). Ramos was preferred to the ex-Manchester United player at kick-off by coach Fernando Santos. A choice that is not ready to be called into question as the Portuguese seemed liberated by the absence of Ronaldo. In any case, it was without him that they scored five goals before he entered the game and thus validated their ticket to the quarter-finals. They will face Morocco, who had achieved a great feat to defeat Spain on penalties earlier.

It is only the third time, after 1966 and 2006, that Portugal have reached this stage of the competition.

Besides Ramos, who incidentally became the first Portuguese player to score a World Cup hat-trick since Eusébio’s hat-trick against North Korea in 1966, Pepe and Guerreiro scored.

By heading the 2-0 goal, Pepe, central defender of FC Porto, became, according to Opta, at 39 years and 283 days, the oldest player to score in the World Cup in a knockout match .

Switzerland, led 4-0, failed to repeat the blow of the last Euro where it had reassembled France after being led 3-1. Akanji made it 4-1 but Ramos popped up to make it worse. In injury time, Leao, the Milanese, who had just come on, rolled up a perfect ball to give Switzerland the heaviest defeat in their history in the competition.

The Portugal of Parisians Nuno Mendes, Danilo – both injured – and Vitinha, came into play on Tuesday, filled up with confidence before crossing the road to Morocco Achraf Hakimi.

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