Ronaldo’s Portugal held by Mexico at Confed Cup

In Kazan hosted the second match of the eighth confederations Cup Portugal national team missed the victory over Mexico.

When Hector Moreno headed in a stoppage time equalizer to make it 2-2 against Portugal in his team’s opening Group A match of the Confederations Cup, the goal felt like a release.

Southampton defender Cedric Soares looked to have won it for Portugal as his shot towards goal looped off a defender and in for 2-1 in the 86th minute. While Portugal was very risky on the counter, Mexico was able to keep Ronaldo at bay for the most of the 90 minutes.

Ronaldo was peaking when he ended his season with Real Madrid, and now is looking to continue his good form with the national team in Russian Federation.

Mexico has won five of its last six matches, with a 2-1 home loss to Croatia in a friendly in May.

“The team continue to believe in qualification, we have great possibilities, because there are still two games left”. We played without confidence, couldn’t connect two or three passes.

“We could have killed off the match but it didn’t happen. We are happy because you can win, lose or draw, but while you play your style, character and football, you feel good”.

Russian Federation leads Group A with three, while New Zealand has zero.

One solution could perhaps be to play with three at the back and add wingbacks in order to guarantee a more compact midfield – a Chelsea-esque approach. Cristiano Ronaldo ran at the Mexican defense before finding Quaresma for an easy finish.

Ronaldo has scored 12 goals in six worldwide outings since coming off injured in the Euro final, but Mexico – winners of the Confederations Cup in 1999 – are confident they can stop him.

A moment of controversy came when Pepe’s goal was ruled out in the 21st minute after there were appeals Nani was offside. The FIFA Confederations Cup serves are a curtain raiser to the FIFA Wold Cup to be hosted by Russian Federation in 2018.The Confederations Cup sees top sides from every continent square off in an eight-team tournament. It’s one of the reasons why they suffered the 7-0 nightmare against Chile past year.

The second started off much like the first, with the Mexicans seeing a lot of the possession. “He is an idol, even for us players”, admitted veteran defender Bruno Alves, the 35-year-old who has just signed for Scottish club Rangers.