Juventus forward Cristiano Ronaldo scored four goals as Portugal beat Lithuania 5-1 in a Euro Group B qualification match that was played at the LFF Stadium in Lithuania. The match attracted about 5,000 fans.
Cristiano Ronaldo opened the scoring in the 7th minute through a penalty. Lithuania’s Vytautas Andriuskevicius equalized in the 28th minute. The match headed into halftime in a 1-1 draw. Ronaldo scored his second, third and fourth goals in the 61st, 64th and 76th minutes respectively. Real Betis midfielder William Cavalho wrapped up the win by scoring Portugal’s fifth goal in the 90th minute.
The win places Portugal second in their group with eight points. Portugal have a game at hand to play.
The four goals from Cristiano Ronaldo took his tally to 25 goals in European Qualifiers, two more than the previous record set by former Republic of Ireland forward Robbie Keane. It was the eighth international hat trick for the 34 year old forward.
In addition to that, Cristiano Ronaldo is the first European to score 90 International goals.
In total, Cristiano Ronaldo has now scored 93 goals for Portugal and will be looking forward to break Ali Daei’s record of 109 goals for Iran.
Records Cristiano Ronaldo is yet to break
- Most goals in men’s internationals (Ali Daei, 109)
- Most goals in men’s World Cup finals (Miroslav Klose, 16)
- Most goals scored in overall World Cup qualification (Carlos Ruiz, 39)
- Most goals scored in a World Cup tournament (Just Fontaine, 13)
- Most goals scored in a single European Championship qualifying campaign (David Healy & Robert Lewandowski, 13)
- Most consecutive matches at the European Championships with at least one goal (Michel Platini, five)
- Fastest goal at the European Championships (Dmitri Kirichenko, 67 seconds)
In another Euro Qualification match played yesterday, England came from a goal down to beat Kosovo 5-3 in a match that was played at St Mary’s Stadium and attracted over 30,000 fans.
The following list shows results of all the Euro Qualifiers matches played yesterday:
Group A
England 5-3 Kosovo
Montenegro 0-3 Czech Republic
Group B
Lithuania 1-5 Portugal
Luxemburg 1-3 Serbia
Group H
Albania 4-2 Iceland
France 3-0 Andorra
Moldova 0-4 Turkey
