Czech Republic 0-4 Portugal: Diogo Dalot double, Bruno Fernandes and Diogo Jota send 2019 winners top of group

Portugal have gone top of their Nations League group after an impressive 4-0 win against the Czech Republic at Fortuna Arena. The visitors arrived in Prague hoping to climb to the summit with a win, with Spain, one point and one place ahead of them, taking on Switzerland in the evening’s other Group A2 match.

Meanwhile, the hosts, three points behind Portugal in third, knew that anything other than victory – combined with dropped points for Spain – would snuff out their sputtering hopes of reaching next summer’s finals. Ad The two sides looked evenly matched early on, with the Czechs going close via Vaclav Jemelka and Patrik Schick before Rafael Leao and Cristiano Ronaldo threatened to score for Portugal.

Ronaldo, who sustained a nasty cut to the nose after a coming-together with Czech goalkeeper Tomas Vaclík, went on to miss two big chances, the first when he scuffed a shot from five yards after an inch-perfect pass from Bruno Fernandes and the second when, having been picked out by Fernandes at the far post, he ballooned wide on the volley. UEFA Nations LeagueSoler and Sarabia fire Spain to win over Czech Republic in Nations League12/06/2022 AT 18:10 The hosts came within a whisker of opening the scoring when, with a little over half an hour gone, a lovely passing move ended with Vladimir Coufal looping a cross into the box.

Both Schick and Antonin Barak went for it, seemingly putting each other off, with the latter glancing a downwards header wide of the upright. Moments later, Portugal took the lead.

Diogo Dalot marauded forwards and picked out Fernandes to his left. His Manchester United teammate whipped a cross into the box which evaded everyone, but Leao gathered it up and pulled the ball back for Dalot on the