FIFA World Cup 2018: Ronaldo's hat-trick helps Portugal draw with Spain 3-3
True to pre-match projection as the match of preliminaries, Portugal and Spain, spurred by some excellent individual performances by Ronaldo and Diego Costa, saw the pool B game ending on even honours on the second day of the FIFA World Cup 2018 on Friday.
Though the match ended in a 3-3 draw, it saw Cristiano Ronaldo scoring the first hat-trick of the current edition of World Cup and 51st overall besides taking his personal tally of international goals to 84.
Playing his fourth World Cup, Ronaldo, became the third player from Portugal to score a hat trick of goals in the elite tournament. In the first three World Cups he had scored three goals and intriguingly in the fourth, probably his last, he scored three in the first game to take his World Cup tally to six.
It was not only Ronaldo's day. Honours were also shared by Diego Costa of Spain, who scored two of three goals by his team and till the scoreline read 2-2, the scorers were Ronaldo and Costa.
Nacho, who scored the third goal for Spain in the 58th minute, probably had the consolation of mitigating his misery as it was he whose rough tackling had brought down Cristiano Ronaldo in the third minute. The resultant penalty saw Ronaldo beating David De Ga, one of best goalkeepers in the world, with a kick that moved him the opposite way.
David De Ga may like to forget tonight's game as quickly as possible as second goal by Ronaldo in the 44th minute saw him failing to stop a kick that in ordinary circumstances should not have posed a problem for a goalkeeper of his stature.
If Ronaldo raced to his hat-trick, it was more because of lapses on the part of defenders of Spain. The third and match equalising goal saw Ronaldo pushing in a curving shot from just outside the box that left David De Ga stranded in the middle of the goal. The award of free kick followed an intentional foul on the part of a defender.
Substitution of Diego Costa in the 76th minute, too, came as a surprise as he was the man who had scored the first two goals fr his team.
At the end of round 1, Iran was at top of pool B with three points while Portugal and Spain shared joint second position with one point each with Uruguay at the bottom without a point.
