Second Trophy in 3 years Portugal wins inaugural Nations League

Guedes goal leads Portugal wins the inaugural Nations League, Stats






Hosts Portugal wins their second trophy in three years by beating the Netherlands to win the inaugural Nations League.

Goncalo Guedes' second-half strike gave them a narrow victory in Porto which Santos said was evidence of their unity as a team.
Cristiano Ronaldo side also won the 2016 European Championship.


The victory was achieved through Guedes, the Valencia winger smashing in from the edge of the area following Bernardo Silva's clever cutback, though Dutch goalkeeper Jasper Cillessen will be disappointed he did not keep the effort out.

The game was billed on the clash of the two influential captains - Portugal forward Cristiano Ronaldo and Netherlands centre-back Virgil van Dijk.





Portugal wins the inaugural Nations League 2019 over Netherlands





Portugal wins the inaugural Nations League 2019: Stats.




1 -   Portugal is the first European nation to host and win a final of a major competition since France beat Brazil 3-0 in the final of the 1998 World Cup.


2 -   The Netherlands have lost four of their last five finals in major international tournaments (three in the World Cup, once in the Nations League).


3 -   They remain winless against Portugal when playing them in Portugal, drawing two and losing four of their six such meetings.


4 -   Goncalo Guedes has been directly involved in five goals in his last eight appearances for Portugal (three goals and two assists).


5 -   No Portugal player has been directly involved in more goals than Bernardo Silva in the Nations League this season (3 - joint-most with Cristiano Ronaldo and Andre Silva), while he also made the most assists of any Portuguese player (2).


6  -  The Netherlands' first shot in this game came in the 65th minute; by which time Portugal had already had 14 shots and opened the scoring.


7 -  Jasper Cillessen became the fifth goalkeeper to reach 50 international appearances for the Netherlands, after Edwin Van Der Sar (130), Hans Van Breukelen (73), Maarten Stekelenburg (58) and Gejus Van Der Meulen (54).


8 -   The Netherlands fielded the same starting XI in consecutive games for the first time since October 2014 (under Guus Hiddink).






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