Ranking Cristiano Ronaldo’s five most clutch goals for Portugal

4. 74th-minute winner vs the Netherlands, EURO 2012

During Ronaldo’s early days in football, people used to say that Ronaldo doesn’t step up for the big games and is more of a small team bully. There are still some people with goldfish memories who say the same about Ronaldo. If there’s an international game to prove how clutch Ronaldo was against big teams and how complete he was as a footballer, this is the one.

It was against the Netherlands in the Group stages of EURO 2016 held in Ukraine, a team which was a must-win game for either team. The Dutch didn’t have a particularly impressive tournament, but they had players like Sneijder, Van Persie, Robben, and Klass-Jan Huntelaar on their side and they had finished as the runner-ups in the 2010 World Cup.

Portugal won the game against Denmark, but they had lost against Germany, and they needed a win to qualify for the quarter-finals. But they were up against a determined Dutch side, who had opened the scoring in the 11th minute itself.

It was a difficult challenge for Portugal to overturn the deficit, but it was not impossible, definitely not for Cristiano Ronaldo. The captain took the matter into his hands, and simply tormented the Dutch defense with his skills and creativity. He kept creating chances and was relentless with his dribbling and shooting. And his hard work paid off, as he scored the equalizer in the 28th minute with a well-taken chance.

And as always, it was never going to be enough for him. He had to score the winner by himself in the 74th minute, following an excellent counter-attack by Portugal. That goal rounded off an excellent performance, which took Portugal to the quarter-finals. And that goal allowed every Portuguese citizen to dream.