Cristiano Ronaldo has warned his Portugal teammates to continue 'respecting the opponent', knowing that North Macedonia stand in their way of a spot at the World Cup.
The 37-year-old played all 90 minutes as Portugal beat Turkey 3-1 on Thursday night to book a final play-off game against North Macedonia, who qualified after beating Italy in dramatic fashion.
Now, the Manchester United star has sent a defiant message to his team to remind them that 'nothing is won, nothing is achieved' yet.
In an Instagram post, Ronaldo wrote: 'The first step has been taken towards our great objective, towards the 2022 World Cup.
'Nothing is won, nothing is achieved. We have to continue to work in a serious and focused way, respecting the opponent but always believing in our abilities. Power Portugal! Go to Qatar!'
Goals from Otavio, Matheus Luis and Liverpool's Diogo Jota gave Fernando Santos' side a crucial play-off semi-final win on Thursday night.
North Macedonia, who are ranked 67th in the world by FIFA, shocked Euro 2020 champions Italy after Aleksandar Trajkovski scored a late goal to knock them out of World Cup qualification.
The five time Ballon d'Or winner will be looking to avoid the disappointment that Italy met after their shock defeat to North Macedonia.
Speaking after the game, midfielder Marco Verratti told RAI Sport: 'It is difficult to understand. I think we dominated this match and we should've won. We had to win.'
'It is difficult to understand. I think we dominated this match and we should've won. We had to win.
'Looking around the locker room, we had the players to challenge for the tournament itself, yet here we are talking about a disaster. It's so tough to go from hero to zero.
ankitttttttttrtr
642
Now some people will hate Ronaldo for saying this also๐ Haters loading โฆ.
Ebubechukwu1996
558
I can only see 2 real PSG fan's here , The new psg fan's are coming to troll
Rosado1976
519
Ten years after he retires ppl will still be hating on him. Ten years from now ppl will still be bringing up Ronaldo vs Messi, who was the best. As annoying as it can get, that's the great thing about sports. When we are old and talking to our Grandkids, we can say we saw legends play and their names were Ronaldo, Messi, Lewandoski, Benzema, Salah, Mane, Gerrard, Lampard, Drogba, Rooney, Ibrahimovich, Buffon. Some of us can go further with Ronaldo Nazario, Ronaldinho, Roberto Baggio, Luis Enrique. Great thing about sports, we will always have memories of our favorite players and also memories of players destroying our favorite teams. We can sit there and tell ppl exactly what we were doing when something happened. Hell we can recall what we were eating, and drinking but forget our girls birthday ๐๐. Either way, you gotta love this sport and sports in general
Ebubechukwu1996
473
some people wil stil hate him for saying this.
KHMMURU07
410
Well said Cr7
ceuciz
382
well said goat
Faoson30
369
So true every team needs to respect oppenent team whether big or small. Italy doesn't respect and taken lightly so they pay the price....๐
Shailking7
337
closer to one last dance..wc2022
Sssmansy
228
European WC qualifiers are BRUTAL, Italy didn't lose a single game in qualification and still didn't make it. Portugal barely scrapped through! ๐ Meanwhile, lose 5 games in the South American Qualifiers and you're still qualifying for the World Cup โ๐ผ Never compare them! ๐ง
thinkbig
221
Manchester united has taught Ronaldo that any team can beat them
Jenifer11
170
What a leader โค๏ธ