From the man behind the football king to the football king.

Chapter 897 Finals in sight
After Portugal defeated Austria 3:0, their group stage was successfully concluded. Portugal advanced with three consecutive wins and firmly occupied first place in the group.

After losing to Portugal, the Netherlands defeated Austria and North Macedonia in succession and finished second in the group. Austria ranked third, and North Macedonia was eliminated after three consecutive defeats.

Two days later, the last two group matches were over, and the teams that advanced to the knockout stage were all announced. Italy, Belgium, Portugal, England, Sweden and France finally won the first place in their respective groups, while Wales, Denmark, the Netherlands, Croatia, Spain and Germany ranked second in their groups, firmly occupying the twelve qualifying places.

The third-placed teams in the six groups were Switzerland, Finland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Ukraine. Slovakia and Finland performed relatively poorly and were eliminated.

According to the confirmed knockout match rules, Portugal's opponent is the third place in Group D, which is the Czech Republic.

The remaining seven groups of opponents are: Wales vs. Denmark, Italy vs. the Netherlands, Belgium vs. Ukraine, Croatia vs. Spain, France vs. Switzerland, England vs. Germany, and Sweden vs. Austria.

The quarter-final match against the Czech Republic was held at the Puskas Stadium in Budapest, the capital of Hungary, on the afternoon of June 6th local time.

This time Portugal played with its full main lineup.

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In the knockout stage, every game is a decisive one. Although Portugal is strong, Santos is not arrogant enough to think that they can beat their opponents with a substitute lineup.

Although the Czech team ranked third in the group stage, their record was good. In the first round, they defeated the Scottish team led by McTominay 2:0, and in the second round, they tied 1:1 with Croatia led by Modric. However, they lost 0:1 to England led by Harry Kane in the last round, and were eventually squeezed to third place by Croatia due to the disadvantage of goal difference.

In fact, Santos' caution is very correct.

In this game, Jota was in great form and performed well, scoring the first goal for Portugal. In the 66th minute of the second half, Holes helped the Czech Republic equalize the score.

However, Portugal took the lead again three minutes later, with Bernardo Silva scoring another goal with an assist from Bruno.

It has to be said that the Czech Republic is indeed a resilient team. In the 78th minute of the game, Holes assisted Schick, helping the latter score his fourth goal in this European Cup, and the Czech Republic once again tenaciously equalized the score.

At the critical moment, Portugal's two core players stood up.

As the game was about to enter injury time, Portugal launched a wave of efficient and quick attacks, and finally Bruno assisted Ronaldo to increase the score for the third time in this game.

In the end, Portugal narrowly defeated the Czech Republic 3:2 at the Puskas Stadium and successfully advanced to the quarterfinals.

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However, in the quarter-finals, there were frequent upsets. For example, Bale's team lost 0:4 to Denmark, while the Netherlands lost 0:2 to Italy. In the match between France and Switzerland, the two sides tied 3:3 in regular time, and neither side made any progress in overtime. In the end, France lost 4:5 in the penalty shootout. Mbappe started his vacation after the round of .

Of course, the most eye-catching match was between England and Germany. In this match between two old rivals, Germany was undoubtedly the more favored side, and in the historical record of the two sides, Germany also had the upper hand. However, the final score was 2:0, with England winning against Germany.

In the other three quarter-finals, Belgium, known as the king of the qualifiers, finally defeated Ukraine 1:0, while Austria scored in overtime, defeated Sweden 2:1 and eliminated Croatia 5:3.

The top eight teams were announced and the matchups were decided: Switzerland and Spain, the two teams that tied their opponents 3:3 in regular time in the round of , became opponents, Belgium faced Italy, Portugal faced Denmark, and Austria faced England.

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On the evening of July 7rd local time, in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, Portugal faced Denmark at the Baku National Stadium.

Denmark is one of the best teams in this European Championship. During the qualifiers, they remained unbeaten along with Portugal, Spain, Belgium and Italy. During the group stage, they beat Finland and Russia to finish second in the group. In the quarter-finals, they unexpectedly defeated Wales led by Bale 4-0. It can be said that they were in great glory.

After resting for nearly a week, Bruno is in much better shape. Plus, Portugal now has a complete team and strong troops, so they have been suppressing Denmark from the very beginning.

Just three minutes into the game, Bruno dribbled the ball during a counterattack. Facing the double-team of four Danish defensive players, he remained fearless. He ran alone, like a tiger among a flock of sheep, and dribbled the ball into the Danish penalty area alone. He calmly kicked the ball into the goal guarded by Schmeichel Jr., scoring the first goal for Portugal.

The two teams then fell into a stalemate and Denmark retreated across the board.

It was not until the 2th minute of the second half that Bruno made a straight pass from the midfield, Guerrero quickly made a run to the left side and suddenly passed the ball back, Ronaldo ran into the open space and calmly shot the ball into the goal with no one guarding him, making it 0:.

Just three minutes later, Bruno drove the ball straight into the middle and passed it diagonally into the penalty area to Ronaldo. The latter blocked the Danish central defender with his body and pretended to rush towards the goal with the ball, but suddenly passed the ball back.

Behind him, the unguarded Bruno came up again and shot calmly, 3:0!

Bruno is undoubtedly in an excellent stage.

………………After scoring twice, he almost shot the ball into the Danish goal from a long distance, but Schmeichel performed very well this time and saved the ball steadily, thus avoiding the goal crisis.

But then, Guerrero made a cross from the left, and Bruno calmly grabbed the ball in the penalty area and shot it in from close range.

However, the referee blew the whistle for a foul by Ronaldo, believing that the Portuguese striker had made a suspected foul on the right side of the goal. This drew unanimous protests from the Portuguese players, and Ronaldo also believed that he had not committed a foul.

But unfortunately, the referee maintained his decision and Bruno's hat-trick masterpiece was eventually disallowed by the referee.

Santos quickly replaced Bruno with Moutinho.

After Bruno left the field, Denmark launched a fierce counterattack, with Dolberg and Delaney scoring two goals in a row.

But at the critical moment, Portugal withstood the opponent's offensive and finally defeated Denmark with a score of 3:2, breaking into the semi-finals of this European Cup.

The other three teams that advanced are Spain, Italy and England.

In the match against Switzerland, Spain and their opponent scored one goal each in regular time, and the game was dragged into overtime. In the overtime, neither side scored a goal, and the game entered a brutal penalty shootout. In the end, it was the experienced Spain who had the last laugh, beating their opponent 3:1 in the penalty shootout and grabbing a ticket to the semi-finals.

In the strong dialogue between Italy and Belgium, the two sides were tied at 2:1 in the first half, which was also the total goal of the game. Italy became the third country to advance to the semi-finals after Spain and Portugal.

In the final quarter-final between England and Austria, England went on a killing spree and eventually swept the dark horse Austria 4:0.

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Four days after playing against Denmark, the entire Portugal team left Azerbaijan for London, England on a chartered flight.

According to the schedule, both semi-finals will be held at the new Wembley Stadium.

Not only that, if Portugal can beat its opponent in the semi-finals, the final will still be held at the new Wembley Stadium.

In other words, the new Wembley Stadium will be Portugal's last stop in this European Cup.

Portugal's opponent in the semi-finals is England, an old rival that Bruno is very familiar with, but it has been three years since they last played there.

The last time the two sides met was in the 2018 World Cup semi-finals. At that time, Bruno led Portugal to a 2:1 victory over the Three Lions and entered the World Cup final for the first time in history.

Just five minutes into the game, Bernardo Silva received an assist from Bruno and scored against England.

In the 2th minute, Ronaldo assisted Bruno to score, extending the score to 0:.

This is Bruno's 9th goal in this European Cup, and he has tied Platini's record of 9 goals in a single European Cup.

In the European Cup historical scorer list, Bruno's number of goals reached 17, surpassing Ronaldo again and taking the top spot.

After the second half, Bruno and Guerrero created threats on the left, and Bruno scored, 3:0.

This is also Bruno's 10th goal in this European Cup, which also means that he has broken Platini's record of scoring 9 goals in a single European Cup.

England then pulled one back, but Portugal eventually beat England 3-1 and met Italy in the final of the European Cup.

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In another semi-final held a day earlier, the two sides were evenly matched in the first half, with the score at 0:0. In the 60th minute of the second half, the Italian team got a chance to counterattack. Federico Chiesa shot from one meter inside the penalty area and broke the deadlock for the Italian team.

In the 80th minute of the game, the Spanish team broke through the middle and attacked. Morata and Olmo cooperated well and broke through the Italian defense with two consecutive two-on-one passes. Finally, Morata received Olmo's oblique pass and scored a goal to equalize the score for the Spanish team.

The semi-final between Italy and Spain was tied at 90:1 after 1 minutes of regular time, and an extra time was needed to decide the winner. In the 30 minutes of extra time, neither side was able to score a goal and the game remained tied, so a brutal penalty shootout was needed to decide the winner.

In the end, Italy scored four out of five penalties, while Spain only scored two. Italy eliminated Spain with a score of 4:2 on penalties.

(End of this chapter)