Portugal earned a dramatic 2-1 victory over the Czech Republic, with substitute Francisco Conceicao scoring the winning goal in stoppage time just minutes after coming on in Leipzig.<\/p>\n
Roberto Martinez’s team seemed poised for a surprising defeat when Lukas Provod netted a sublime finish against the run of play midway through the second half. However, an own goal by Robin Hranac soon leveled the score.<\/p>\n
Despite the Czech Republic’s brave defense against a relentless Portuguese onslaught, they were ultimately undone when Conceicao, making his competitive debut, lashed the ball home to secure the win.<\/p>\n
Bruno Fernandes had Portugal\u2019s first real chance midway through the first half, sending a left-footed rocket narrowly over the crossbar as Martinez’s side dominated possession early on. Moments later, Rafael Leao was inches away from connecting with a low cross from Fernandes that zipped across the goal.<\/p>\n
Cristiano Ronaldo had a golden opportunity to open the scoring just past the half-hour mark when Fernandes set him up with a fine through-ball. However, Czech goalkeeper Jindrich Stanek reacted quickly, racing out to block the attempt.<\/p>\n
Conceicao’s debut goal was celebrated with jubilation, especially by Captain Ronaldo.<\/p>\n
The Czech goal came just after the hour mark and was completely against the flow of play. Vladimir Coufal regained possession after Portugal failed to clear a cross from the left, passing it to the unmarked Provod. Before the Portuguese defense could react, Provod unleashed an unstoppable shot into Diogo Costa’s far corner.<\/p>\n
Portugal’s equalizer came in the 69th minute. Stanek tried to parry away a header across the goal from Nuno Mendes but only managed to deflect it against Hranac\u2019s shin, resulting in an own goal.<\/p>\n
Diogo Jota thought he had clinched the victory with an 87th-minute header, but VAR ruled it out for offside against Ronaldo. Finally, Conceicao sealed the win with his last-minute strike, securing a memorable victory for Portugal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Portugal earned a dramatic 2-1 victory over the Czech Republic, with substitute Francisco Conceicao scoring the winning goal in stoppage time just minutes after coming on in Leipzig. Roberto Martinez’s team seemed poised for a surprising defeat when Lukas Provod netted a sublime finish against the run of play midway through the second half. However, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":35156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[1031,381],"class_list":["post-35155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-francisco-conceicao","tag-portugal"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35155"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35161,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35155\/revisions\/35161"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}