Portugal, one of the favorites to win the entire tournament or at least advance in the quarterfinals, were stunned by 34th-ranked Iceland on Tuesday during their opening game of Group F competitions held at the Stade Geoffroy-Guichard in Saint-Étienne, as per the Mirror.
Head coach Fernando Santos’ boys started strong and immediately took control of the game with relentless attacks but the Icelandic defense held on.
A Selecção finally scored the opening goal at the 31st minute courtesy of Valencia winger Andre Gomes’ assist to Fenerbahçe striker Nani, who stomped a short-range shot towards Hannes Halldorsson’s net.
The Portuguese were in control until the halftime break as Iceland seemed to have accepted defeat, but Strákarnir okkar emerged from their locker room looking like a different team.
Giving a much better effort in the second half, Iceland midfielder Birkir Bjarnason found the equalizer at the 50th to shock Cristiano Ronaldo and his teammates.
Portugal then attacked Iceland’s goal ruthlessly again looking for the winning goal, but it never came as the latter successfully fended all of them off. Ronaldo had one final chance to snatch the three points for his squad but his free kick in injury was far wide and completely missed the goal.
Meanwhile, 10th-ranked team Austria was upset by 20th-ranked Hungary, 0-2 at the Nouveau Stade de Bordeaux during their tournament opener on the same day, Daily Mail Online reported.
It was a shaky start for both squads as the two teams failed to score a single goal even past the hour mark of the match.
Hannover 96 forward Adam Szalai finally broke the deadlock at the 62nd minute off an assist by Werder Bremen midfielder Laszlo Kleinheisler before Austrian defender Aleksandar Dragovic was sent off four minutes later because of a second yellow card booking.
It was an uphill climb for Das Team from there as they surrendered another goal three minutes before full time, this time coming from FC Nurnberg midfielder Zoltan Stieber, to drop via a lopsided decision.
The predicted result is a tough 2-1 decision for Portugal.
Portugal starting lineup (4-1-2-1-2 formation): Patricio; Vieirinha, Pepe, Carvalho, Guerreiro; Pereira; Gomes, Mario; Moutinho; Nani, Ronaldo
Austria starting lineup (4-2-3-1 formation): Almer; Klein, Garics, Hinteregger, Fuchs; Baumgartlinger, Alaba; Harnik, Junuzovic, Arnautovic; Janko
