PORTO: Three years after conquering European football for the first time, Portugal and Cristiano Ronaldo are celebrating another international title.

Portugal won the inaugural UEFA Nations League tournament on Sunday, beating the Netherlands 1-0 to lift their first trophy since the 2016 European Championship.

“It’s a great achievement, indisputable,” Portugal coach Fernando Santos said. “These victories will be part of Portuguese football forever.”

Ronaldo, coming off a hat-trick in the semi-finals, lifted the winners’ trophy but wasn’t much of a factor in Sunday’s final, with the only goal coming from midfielder Gonalo Guedes early in the second half at the Estadio do Drago.

“Things have been going well for Portugal in recent years,” Ronaldo said. “The national team has won some important titles.”

The hosts’ victory in UEFA’s newest competition, created to give national teams more meaningful matches than just friendlies, denied the Netherlands their first trophy since the 1988 European Championship. The revamped Dutch team was seeking some redemption after failing to qualify for the 2018 World Cup and the 2016 European Championship.

After the match, the Portuguese squad went to a public plaza in Porto where several thousand fans celebrated the win. Santos, Ronaldo and other players addressed the fans from a balcony.

“We couldn’t have done this without you,” Ronaldo told fans.

Ronaldo couldn’t do much against Dutch defender Virgil van Dijk in the matchup of likely contenders for the player of the year award, but Guedes couldn’t be stopped when he hit a powerful right-footed shot from outside the area in the 60th minute.

Guedes started the build-up to the goal with a pass to Bernardo Silva, receiving the ball back at the top of the area and firing a firm low shot past Dutch goalkeeper Jasper Cillessen, who touched the ball but couldn’t parry it away.

“It was a hard shot,” said Cillessen, who was making his 50th appearance with the Netherlands. “I saw it late.”

Portugal extended their unbeaten record to 10 matches since losing to Uruguay at the last World Cup. They have lost only two out of 38 competitive matches since Santos took charge just under five years ago.

Portugal had the advantage of an extra day’s rest and not being forced to extra time against Switzerland in their semi-final as the Dutch were in seeing off England on Thursday.

And the hosts looked the fresher throughout with Ronald Koeman’s men jaded at the end of a long season.

“If we were tired I don’t know, but we were not good enough,” admitted Koeman. “They defended well and the were very compact in their game, but you have to be better with the ball and we were not.”

Published in Dawn, June 11th, 2019