Cristiano Ronaldo was overcome with emotion as Portugal won the Nations League title after a tense penalty shootout against Spain. The match ended 2\u20132 after extra time, with Ronaldo scoring a key goal before Portugal held their nerve to win 5\u20133 on penalties. Ronaldo\u2019s 138th international goal took the final to a shootout, with Alvaro Morata\u2019s miss proving costly for Spain as Ruben Neves struck the winning spot kick to spark wild scenes of celebration, with emotion overwhelming the veteran captain. Spain\u2019s exhilarating 5\u20134 victory over France in Thursday\u2019s semi-final had ensured Luis de la Fuente\u2019s side continued an unbeaten run stretching back to March 2023 ahead of Sunday\u2019s showpiece final in Munich. They looked on course for another trophy, following last year\u2019s European Championship triumph, when Mart\u00edn Zubimendi tapped in his second international goal in the 21st minute. The holders\u2019 lead did not last long, however, as flying Portugal full-back Nuno Mendes slotted home the equaliser after good work from Ronaldo in the build-up. A sublime pass from midfielder Pedri helped Mikel Oyarzabal \u2013 who had scored the winner against England in last year\u2019s European Championship final \u2013 restore Spain\u2019s lead before the break. The tussle between the Iberian neighbours was billed as a clash between old and new \u2013 40-year-old, five-time Ballon d\u2019Or winner Ronaldo and Spain\u2019s teenage sensation Lamine Yamal. While Yamal, a favourite to win one of football\u2019s most prestigious individual awards this year, struggled to make inroads, Ronaldo pounced on his chance, firing Portugal level from close range just past the hour mark. Ronaldo went off injured late on, and neither side could find a winner in extra time. The match went to a shootout, with Portugal converting all five penalties to lift the trophy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cristiano Ronaldo was overcome with emotion as Portugal won the Nations League title after a tense penalty shootout against Spain. The match ended 2\u20132 after…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25006,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}