We started the competition in the Final Four of the League of Nations in Porto, where Portugal faced Switzerland. In the Fernando Santos team we could finally watch Cristiano Ronaldo, who was missing in the group competition. CR7 and the company had a difficult task ahead of them today, because the Swiss in the last matches look great. Suffice it to say that in the group stage they defeated the Belgians, the bronze medalists of the World Cup in Russia.

Squads:

Portugal: Patricio- Guerreiro, Dias, Pepe (63' Fonte), Semedo- Bernardo Silva, Neves, Carvalho, Fernandes (91' Moutinho)- Ronaldo, Joao Felix (70' Guedes)

Switzerland: Sommer- Rodriguez, Akanji, Schar, Mbabu- Zuber (83' Steffen), Freuler (89' Drmic), Xhaka, Zakaria (71' Fernandes)- Shaqiri, Seferovic

To the surprise of the fans gathered at the stadium, it was the guests who better started the meeting. Shaqiri and the company put the Portuguese on the defensive and Rui Patricio had a lot of work to do in the first few minutes. Finally, the hosts managed to organize their game and started to approach the rival's penalty area more and more bravely. From the very beginning the match was watched with pleasure. Both teams had a lot to offer in the offensive and there was no boring exchange of balls in the positional attack.

In the 25th minute, he remembered the one who had been missing from the Portuguese team recently. Ronaldo showed off with a perfect free kick, completely confusing the Swiss goalkeeper. We had 1:0 and the guests started to make up for their losses.

The ambition and willingness of Vladimir Petkovic's charges could not be denied. They consistently played with high pressure, forcing the goalkeeper of Portugal to send long balls. Unfortunately, on the Swiss side, there was a lack of specifics. Shaqiri's individual breakups did not bring the expected results. They were also not able to threaten the game with permanent fragments of the game, which were not missing in the first half. They had their best goal in the 42nd minute, when Shaqiri sent a great pass to the penalty box. Haris Seferovic found himself in front of Patricio's goal, and when he hit the ball, he hit the bar. With this action, the Swiss sent a clear signal that they would be dangerous in the second half. So we were waiting for what would happen after the break.

From the very beginning of the second half there was a lot going on. During one of the actions in the penal field of the Portuguese fell Seferovic, but the referee did not stop the game. When the ball finally left the field, Felix Brych decided to use the VAR to check if Semedo had broken the rules. The repetitions clearly showed that the Swiss national team's attacker had fallen over his own legs and there was no question of a penalty. The judge probably saw something different, however, and to the surprise of the commentators and fans, he pointed to the penalty. Ricardo Rodriguez came up with a penalty shootout. The shooter's intentions were perfectly felt by the goalkeeper, but the ball rolled over his gloves and eventually fell into the net. We had a draw and the fight in this meeting started again.

The Swiss impressed me with their self-confidence. Every time Sommer tried to resume the game with a short pass to the nearest defender. They were not prevented from exchanging balls under their own penalty area by high pressure from the hosts. Portuguese with every passing minute looked worse and worse. Bernardo Silva's individual uprisings no longer impressed the defenders of Switzerland.

When it seemed that we were in for overtime, the CR7 once again confirmed its genius. For two minutes he scored two goals, completing the hat-trick. Cristiano was completely invisible for the entire second half and attacked at the best possible moment.

The Swiss could not believe what had just happened. Throughout the match they played much better than the Portuguese, only for their misfortune in the team of rivals is played by a man from another planet, who on his own could decide the fate of the match. Cristiano and the company register for the finals and their rival will choose tomorrow's battle between the Netherlands and England.