![](\"http:\/\/arewa.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Ronaldo\u2019s-hat-trick-sends-Portugal-to-Nations-League-final.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nRonaldo blasted Portugal ahead from a free kick in the 25th minute, his first goal for his country for nearly a year.<\/p>\n
But the Swiss equalised with a penalty kick after halftime which will raise more questions over the use of the VAR system.<\/p>\n
After a largely anonymous second half, Ronaldo suddenly sprang to life.<\/p>\n
He scored twice in the last three minutes to complete the 53rd hat-trick of his career and the seventh for his country.<\/p>\n
By this, the Juventus player showed that even at 34 he is always a threat.<\/p>\n
His goals \u2014 his first for his country since last year\u2019s FIFA World Cup in Russia \u2014 rescued Portugal.<\/p>\n
This was after the Swiss had dominated for the final half hour and threatened to snatch a shock win.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no adjective to describe him,\u201d said Portugal coach Fernando Santos. \u201cHe\u2019s a genius. You can be a genius in art, and in sculpture and he is a football genius.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an intense match, very hard-fought, against a very well-organised Swiss team,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Swiss coach Vladimir Petkovic was left to rue a missed opportunity.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had the chance to get a second but didn\u2019t take it. We got outnumbered at the back and conceded. Their top player made the difference,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Switzerland created some early openings while Ronaldo missed a good early chance for Portugal when he dragged his shot wide after the Swiss gave away possession in defence.<\/p>\n
But there was no mistake in the 25th minute when he went down under a challenge from Kevin Mbabu on the edge of the area.<\/p>\n
He got up to send his free-kick fizzing past a wrong-footed Sommer and into the net.<\/p>\n
Switzerland got back into the match in extraordinary circumstances after half-time<\/p>\n
Swiss midfielder Steven Zuber went down under a challenge from Nelson Semedo as he ran onto Xherdan Shaqiri\u2019s through ball and appealed for a penalty kick, but play still continued.<\/p>\n
Portugal then went straight down the other end and were awarded a penalty kick for a foul on Silva.<\/p>\n
The referee, after consulting the video assistant, then decided to review the Swiss incident on the pitchside monitor and awarded them the spot kick.<\/p>\n
The incident seemed to unsettle Portugal and the Swiss took control with Shaqiri at the centre of their best moves.<\/p>\n
He was looking to make an impression after getting limited playing time for Liverpool this season.<\/p>\n
Steven Zuber and Haris Seferovic both missed chances and the Swiss were then destroyed by Ronaldo with his most deadly strikes.<\/p>\n
Bernardo Silva produced a low cross from the right and Ronaldo swept the ball home with his first touch to rescue his side in the 88th minute.<\/p>\n
Two minutes later, he collected the ball on the counter-attack, twisted past his marker and curled the ball into the far corner for his 88th international goal in 157 appearances\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Evergreen Cristiano Ronaldo scored a hat-trick, including two late goals, to give Portugal a 3-1 win over Switzerland in a Nations League semi-final featuring an extraordinary VAR incident on Wednesday. Ronaldo blasted Portugal ahead from a free kick in the 25th minute, his first goal for his country for nearly a year. But the Swiss […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":124032,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[4679,462],"class_list":["post-124031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-christiano-ronaldo","tag-portugal"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=124031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/124032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=124031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=124031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=124031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}