Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes provided three assists and scored once to inspire Portugal to victory against Luxembourg in a 9-0 thriller and maintained their perfect start to their Euro 2024 Group J qualifying campaign.
Despite missing Cristiano Ronaldo through suspension, Portugal produced a dominant display at Estadio Algarve with Fernandes producing a hat-trick of assists before scoring a late goal himself in the nation’s biggest international victory to date.
Goncalo Inacio opened the scoring after 12 minutes and a brace from Paris St-Germain forward Goncalo Ramos soon had the home side in complete control.
Inacio headed in a fourth in first-half stoppage time from another pin-point delivery by Fernandes.
Skysports.com reports that Roberto Martinez’s side did not let up and, just before the hour, Fernandes found Liverpool forward Diogo Jota, who raced clear to fire home a fifth.
Ricardo Horta added a sixth with 20 minutes left before Jota slotted in again. Fernandes then capped his fine individual display with a well-taken goal late on and Joao Felix completed the rout to make it six wins from six.
Slovakia remain five points behind Portugal after they made a fast start to beat Liechtenstein 3-0 in Bratislava with goals from David Hancko, Ondrej Duda and Robert Mak inside the first six minutes.
Alfred Finnbogason scored in stoppage-time to give Iceland a 1-0 victory over Bosnia and Herzegovina in Reykjavik.
Croatia moved top of Group D on goal difference after a 1-0 win in Armenia, where an early strike from Andrej Kramaric proved enough for all three points.
