Strong Nerves

... Not from Cristiano Ronaldo, that's for sure.

But the Portuguese team had their mettle tested quite hardly in the game against Denmark.

Pepe (in minute 24) scored a goal quite similar to Shevchenko's second against Sweden. And when Postiga (36) put the ball in the net for the second time, with a perfect volley, it seemed like the contest was over.

However, only 5 minutes after Postiga's goal, badly-played offside trap made another victim again, when Bendtner only had to head the ball into the empty net from a few meters, after Krohn-Dehli's smart moves destroyed the Portuguese maneuver.

It stayed like that for almost forty minutes, excluding the half-time break.
And then the Danish's persistence paid off. Jacobsen's long cross was missed by Pepe, and Bendtner again scored.

It was 2-2, with ten minutes left, but to their credit the Portuguese were not discouraged.

Silvestre Varela, the attacker who missed a very good chance against Germany, came on again as a substitute, but this time he scored. After missing the volley shot, Varela took advantage that the ball was still at his feet, and managed an unstoppable shot to the left of Andersen.

All nice and good for Portugal, even though they gave up a two-goal lead, but they just have to be worried about Ronaldo missing three chances to score, including a huge one, alone with the Danish goalkeeper, at 2-1. (That would have probably settled the tie, and Ronaldo would not have heard the end of it from the Portuguese press if the game had ended 2-2.)

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