Portugal will now face either European champions Spain or France in Sunday\u2019s final at the same venue
\nMUNICH
\nCristiano Ronaldo scored the winner in a 2-1 victory over Germany in Munich on Wednesday, sending Portugal through to the Nations League final and breaking his run of bad fortune against the Germans.
\nRonaldo\u2019s 68th-minute tap-in, a record-extending 137th international goal, sealed a first win over Germany after five losses \u2013 his longest streak against any national side without tasting victory.
\nAfter a stuttering first half, Florian Wirtz produced a moment of magic to give Germany the lead three minutes after half-time, starting and finishing a clever burst through the middle and heading in the opener.
\nPortugal\u2019s Francisco Conceicao ran 35 metres to score a brilliant solo goal, levelling things up with half an hour remaining.
\nThe stage was then set for Ronaldo, who had missed two solid chances earlier, to land the telling blow \u2013 turning in a Nuno Mendes pass from close range.
\nPortugal, winners of the inaugural Nations League in 2019, will now face either European champions Spain or France in Sunday\u2019s final at the same venue.
\nThe loss is a setback for Julian Nagelsmann\u2019s Germany, who had lost just one of their previous 17 games.
\nPortugal had four players backing up from winning Saturday\u2019s Champions League final \u2013 and the ensuing celebrations \u2013 but it was Germany who struggled to find rhythm early.
\nThe match started 10 minutes late due to a violent storm which left hailstones scattered across the turf.
\nAleksandar Pavlovic mislaid several passes while Portugal\u2019s approach of pressing Jonathan Tah almost paid dividends, with the defender insecure in possession.
\nRonaldo, greeted by Portuguese cheers and German boos every time he came near the ball, almost scored the opener six minutes in, but his shot was claimed by old La Liga sparring partner Marc-Andr\u00e9 ter Stegen, playing his first match for Germany since September 2024.
\nWirtz opener
\nGermany\u2019s best chance of the opening half fell to debutant Nick Woltemade with 18 minutes gone, but the 1.98-metre-tall striker\u2019s low shot was well saved by Diogo Costa.
\nRonaldo was inches away from giving Portugal the lead when the visitors broke immediately after half-time, but he was unable to get enough of his boot on a clever Nuno Mendes cross with an open goal beckoning.
\nGermany took less than a minute to punish the miss. Wirtz tiptoed down the left side, attracting three defenders before laying off for Joshua Kimmich.
\nThe German captain chipped it over the Portugal defence and back to Wirtz, who expertly guided a low header into the bottom right corner.
\nBoth sides made three changes on the 60-minute mark, but it was Roberto Mart\u00ednez whose substitutions had the telling impact.
\nFive minutes after coming on, Conceicao shed Robin Gosens with a shimmy near the halfway line and advanced goalwards before unleashing a superb curling shot past the desperate fingers of Ter Stegen.
\nRonaldo then put Portugal in front, nervelessly tapping in a Nuno Mendes pass to make up for his previous misses \u2013 his 137th goal for Portugal in his 219th international.
\nMunich-born Karim Adeyemi rattled the crossbar with eight minutes remaining, but Germany could not find an equaliser and will need to be content with a third-placed match in Stuttgart on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Portugal will now face either European champions Spain or France in Sunday\u2019s final at the same venue MUNICH Cristiano Ronaldo scored the winner in a 2-1 victory over Germany in Munich on Wednesday, sending Portugal through to the Nations League final and breaking his run of bad fortune against the Germans. Ronaldo\u2019s 68th-minute tap-in, a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":82108,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82094"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82112,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82094\/revisions\/82112"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}