An impressive performance and grand victory for Portugal in their second game for Group G of the World Cup 2010 finals. Cristiano Ronaldo and his team mates destroyed North Korea by 7-0, securing a spot in the second round of the tournament (unless they lose to Brazil and the Ivory Coast beats North Korea by…8-0).
The strong rain falling over the Cape Town Stadium did not stop the two teams from performing above expectations during the first half of the game. Both Portugal and North Korea created many chances in the first 45 minutes, but the Portuguese were the only ones to celebrate a goal: Tiago gave a nice assist to Raul Meireles in 29′ that had no problem scoring from close range. The psychology of North Korea’s players went down after the goal, so Portugal was able to easily keep the score at 1-0 for the entire first half.
Portugal came strong in the second half, determined to finish the game quick. Simão in 53′ and Hugo Almeida three minutes later managed to beat goalkeeper Ri Myong-Guk, and North Korea was starting to collapse: Two goals from Tiago (60′, 89′), Ronaldo’s first goal of the World Cup 2010 tournament in 87′, and even Liédson that came in as a substitution in 77′ was able to score a goal just four minutes later.
So both Brazil and Portugal are moving on to the round of 16, making the next game between them a stress free match that is guaranteed to offer lots of excitement and some fantastic football for all World Cup fans.
