34′ – GOAL!! PORTUGAL 2-0 CROATIA (RONALDO)

It’s the moment everyone wanted to see: goal number 900 for Cristiano Ronaldo!

Result: Azerbaijan 1-3 Sweden (Group C)

Denmark – Switzerland 0:0 (all A)

Northern Ireland 2-0 Luxembourg (all C)

San Marino – Liechtenstein 0-0 (D)

Croatia play their own corner short, but Modrić misses a simple five-meter pass to Martin Baturina, a sight never seen before.

Finally, Kramaric gets a weak shot, the ball goes past the edge of the penalty area, the guests currently seem sluggish.

The crowd is desperate to see history made tonight and their big moment almost comes when Ronaldo, at full speed, picks up a clever backheel from Rafael Leao.

Although he takes a well-placed low shot, the angle is tight and Livakovic puts himself in the perfect position to parry the shot and only concede a corner.

21′ – WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?

Ronaldo wins a free kick within striking distance and… lets his teammate take it? The ball flies dangerously into the far corner, but Croatia holds on.

18′ – Lull in the proceedings

Another long-range shot went straight to Costa, and Portugal now tried to exert some control over the game, which triggered a wave of applause in the stands.

Wow, that’s a laser shot from Modric. Mario Pasalic lays the ball off to the midfielder, who comes from distance to the edge of the box and fires a shot at the near post that might have beaten Diogo Costa, but goes just wide.

Bernado Silva concedes a corner, but Portugal have a chance! They shoot the ball forward on the counterattack and Livakovic has to run almost to the center circle to save the danger with a sliding tackle.

8′ – GOAL! PORTUGAL 1-0 CROATIA (DALOT)

What a start for Portugal! Once again Fernandes is at the centre of the action as he sneaks in from the left with plenty of options to choose from. He flicks a deft shot that finds the perfectly timed run of the Manchester United full-back.

Dalot still had a little work to do as he ran away from goal, pursued by Borna Sosa, but he was able to unfurl his body and shoot under Livakovic to take the lead!

The Estadio de Luz buzzes as soon as Ronaldo gets the ball, but it is Fernandes who forces Dominik Livakovic to make the first save – the ball bounces to him on the edge of the box, but his shot is not far enough away from the goalkeeper.

Portugal opted for three more attacking midfielders and passed their first test by limiting Croatia’s possession before Andrej Kramaric was ruled offside.

After a long captain’s talk between Ronaldo and Modric and a minute’s silence for Benfica legend Adolfo Calisto, the match begins! Portugal starts in grey against a Croatian team dressed in blue.

19:40 – PLAYERS ARE IN THE TUNNEL

Only five minutes until kick-off!

Pepe has retired and Roberto Martinez has removed Joao Cancelo, Danilo Pereira and Francisco Conceicao from the squad, among others. There are some new faces in the squad, including 17-year-old Geovany Quenda, who has only made four appearances for the senior team. But the starting eleven is pretty familiar:

(4-3-3): Costa, Dalot, Dias, Inacio, Mendes, Silva, Vitinha, Fernandes, Neto, Ronaldo, Leao.

Due to injuries, Zlatko Dalic was now lacking a replacement for the full-back, so he changed the line-up in Lisbon:

(3-5-2): Livakovic, Sutalo, Pongracic, Gvardiol, Jakic, Modric, Baturina, Kovacic, Sosa, Pasalic, Kramaric.

While we are busy battling for a place in the quarter-finals of this competition, there is something much more important at stake for San Marino tonight.

They face Liechtenstein and have a very real opportunity to celebrate their second ever victory tonight, their first since 2004 and their first ever competitive win, so keep an eye on that…

19:25 – AROUND THE SITE

Azerbaijan 1-3 Sweden (Group C)

Serbia vs. Spain, Scotland vs. Poland, Denmark vs. Switzerland (A); Belarus vs. Bulgaria, Estonia vs. Slovakia, Northern Ireland vs. Luxembourg (C); San Marino vs. Liechtenstein (D) – all 19:45 KO.

Friday, 6.9.: Wales – Türkiye (B, 19:45); Saturday 7/9: Ireland vs England (B, 17:00 – all UK times).

As we’ve previously reported, it’s largely not the players. After hearing concerns about player welfare, UEFA has foregone additional matchday revenue to reduce the number of players – no, just kidding, they’ve added more playoffs to the rotation.

The teams that finish third in their group will play a home and away match against a second-placed team from the group below them. The winner will move up to the higher group for the 2026/27 competition.

An exception is Group A, whose four runners-up will face the group winners in the quarter-finals of the Nations League in March 2025, which will also be played over two legs. The winners of these matches will then advance to the semi-finals and the final, which will be played in one country as before.

This will also have an impact on World Cup qualification, but by the time that happens you’ll have forgotten all the details anyway, so we’ll save that explanation for now.

WHAT KIND OF FOOTBALL IS ON TNT SPORTS?

Matches falling within the Saturday embargo period cannot be broadcast live in the UK. The embargo prohibits matches from being broadcast on television between 2:45pm and 5:15pm in the UK.

19:10 – RONALDO LEADS THE LINE FOR PORTUGAL

Likewise, Roberto Martinez names a well-known team for Portugal with a well-known name at the top.

19:05 – MODRIC LEADS CROATIA TO CAPTAIN

He turns 39 next week, but Luka Modrić is back in action tonight in a team that has only three changes since its elimination from Euro 2024.

19:00 – HELLO AND WELCOME

The Nations League is back and bigger than ever! And with it the start of a new cycle in European international football, as the Euro 2024 list is cleaned up and teams look ahead to the expanded World Cup in two years. At least in theory.

Yet for Portugal and Croatia, today’s game feels more like business as usual. Nothing underlines this more than the continued presence in their respective teams of Luka Modrić and Cristiano Ronaldo, who have a combined age of 77 and have won more trophies than a Victorian big-game hunter.

Portugal were the best team in Euro qualifiers and most of that core are still in their early stages or already at their best, while Modrić will face Ivan Perisić and Andrej Kramarić, all veterans of the 2018 World Cup final, in the Croatian national team.

So perhaps the next 12 months are more of a last hurrah and a chance to pick up a few more trophies – this time there’s twice the chance of making it to the knockout stages of the UEFA Nations League, but more on that later. The game starts in 45 minutes!

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