UNREAL CR7!” - Zlatan & Henry Stunned as Ronaldo’s Wondergoals Fire Portugal 3-0 Up

Well, this World Cup is getting a little insane. Rebecca Lowe, Alexi Lalas, Lathan Ibrahimovic, Thierry Henry with you for the halftime show. Let's show you the first half of that game between Portugal and Uzbekistan because Ronaldo's come to play, Alexi. Yep, mark of a star is when people are doubting you, you shove right down their throat. Cristiano Ronaldo, one, two, three steps, get in front of his defender, half-volley here. Not an easy goal to score, but man, he hammers it home. That is the look of a man who is relieved and happy. Here we see Pedro Neto gets the free kick and when everybody thinks the main man is going to shoot, he lets the free kick go to Nuno Mendes, 2-0. The team scores good. A decoy in action, you like that, Lathan? Yes, good goal. Save the ball, save the ball, come on. Almost. And then once again the big man, we've seen that this season with Man United, the timing of the pass, the weight of the pass from Bruno Fernandes and what a finish from Cristiano Ronaldo. Have a look here, not so much power but precision, direction. Good service. Well done, 3-0 Portugal, two goals from Ronaldo. Yeah, indeed. I think Portugal likes to answer every question that we had, haven't they? Yeah, I mean, you can grumpy old man it and say that it's Uzbekistan, but you know, you play the team that's in front of you and this is exactly what the doctor ordered for not just Cristiano Ronaldo but also Roberto Martinez and this Portugal team. Lathan, thoughts? All the stars have presented themselves now in the World Cup, so they just have to continue to produce and a better team effort from the Portuguese side today, so let's see what happens in the second half. We might see many more goals. Thierry? Run, crosses, a bit of more urgency when they pass the ball and the big man, if you feed him, he's going to score, that's for sure. Okay, gentlemen, thank you. Well, our Fox Sports colleague Tom Brady posing an interesting question regarding this World Cup. As Lathan said, the stars have certainly delivered so far and Tom asks, best World Cup ever for Portugal fans? Plenty of reasons to celebrate today. This was the reaction to Cristiano Ronaldo's first goal at a Lisbon watch party, the second 45 minutes from Houston, still on the way, stay with us. Diogo Costa gets the starting goal for Portugal. Across the back, Ruben Dias will be anchoring the defence. The midfield is a real strength of this Portugal team. Virginia, Jean Neves, fresh off winning a second straight Champions League title with PSG and Cristiano Ronaldo does indeed retain his place in the line-up. He had three shots and just 25 touches in the opener against DR Congo. Ronaldo hoping to cause problems for Abduvahid Nematov, who starts in goal for Uzbekistan. The 25-year-old was on the bench for the 3-1 opening defeat to Colombia, but he gets the nod today to a goalkeeping change and it'll be his 16th international appearance. Nematov protected by a back line that includes Manchester City's Eldor Shomuradov is the danger man for them up front with 44 goals and 94 international appearances and for more, let's check in with our match commentators. Here's Darren Fletcher and Owen Hargreaves. The big question today, Rebecca, is Cristiano Ronaldo going to score and is this Portugal team going to make him more effective than he was in the first game? Owen Hargreaves, over to you. You know what, I don't think it's just on Cristiano, it's on Roberto Martinez as well to come up with a little game plan. Scaloni's done it for Messi and the team and they function. Cristiano's still their best goal scorer, but I think the team around him could do with complimenting him a little bit more. I think Bruno Fernandes needs to get on the ball a little bit more. I think we'll see changes from Roberto Martinez. I would put in Leal, maybe Xiao Felix. I think this team needs a little bit of speed. People not coming short to the ball, make runs and behind. I think Cristiano will get goals today. I'll tell you something, Owen thinks he's going to score today and he knows him better than most. Big day for Cristiano Ronaldo. Let's join Nathalie Guedra. On Portugal's camp after the 1-1 draw against DR Congo was big. The local media was very critical and so much debate with the fans and the Cristiano Ronaldo factor. Even though we see a lot of Ronaldo shirts and signs here, internally the players have blocked out all the criticism. That was the key message that they repeated over the past few days. Roberto Martinez, the manager, he actually emphasized that the team is even more united after the game and that the players were very accountable for everything that they could have done better in that match. On the starting 11, there was a lot of expectation on changes, more specifically on the front line and even more with João Felix playing because he's starting alongside Cristiano Ronaldo, his teammate at Al Nacer. They started 29 of 34 games at the league this season, so they hope that this combination can help Portugal against Uzbekistan today. Over to you, Rebecca. Great stuff. Thank you very much, Nathalie. Portugal put nine past Armenia in their final qualifier for this World Cup and all their attacking talent might compel Uzbekistan to adopt a conservative approach, perhaps. Dan Delexy-Lalas. Well, we've seen this movie before, right? Four years on and we're still arguing as to whether Portugal is better with Cristiano Ronaldo on the field. But just a reminder, if you're looking for someone to blame, Roberto Martinez is the manager. He made this decision, and maybe blame is a harsh word, but at least in terms of the responsibility, he had options not to bring Cristiano Ronaldo. He decided this is what is best for the team, so now he has to make sure that he fixes it. I say this with all due respect to the Uzbek people, to Uzbekistan as a country. If there ever was a game to start Cristiano Ronaldo, this is it. On paper, they are going to get a lot of opportunities. The problem for Roberto Martinez and for Cristiano Ronaldo is what if it doesn't go well today? I hope it goes well for Cristiano Ronaldo and for Portugal today, and I think they're going to have opportunities, but this is going to continue to be a drama and a drama that Roberto Martinez created by bringing him to the World Cup. Zlatan, what is your opinion on the drama? The question is not about if Cristiano will start or not. He will start the games. The person to focus on is the coach Martinez, because if he puts Cristiano on the pitch, he needs to put a tactic that makes the team work and not a player, because the team is going to do the success in this team. So it's not an easy position for Martinez, because if he doesn't play Cristiano, he's going to get fired, and if he doesn't win the World Cup, he's going to get fired. So it's not easy for him. Yeah, we're going to look at maybe what they should do in a second, Thierry, but just your opinion first on the situation. You know, it's the narrative of Cristiano Ronaldo or if he should play or not play. Portugal has to ultimately win a game today against Uzbekistan, and I said it before, but people like to put other narratives out there. Cristiano Ronaldo is never a problem for a team. If you start him, then you need to find a solution to make him a solution and an answer, not a problem or a question when we talk about him, and that's the issue, and it didn't happen against DR Congo, and I'm going to explain why. If you play with him, we know the big man right now is not going to run into the channel or run in behind anymore, but I'll try to explain this. Bernardo Silva, by the way, he pays the price of not running in behind or maybe able to beat people in 1v1, but when you pass that ball, the defense will push, as we see here, and put Ronaldo offside. At that particular moment, when Joao Neves gets the ball, someone needs to run in behind. Someone will. Ronaldo cannot now because he's offside, because that defense push, that 5-3-2, as you can see clearly, nothing will happen from that. It's too easy for DR Congo to defend. Same here. Normally, again, I repeat, normally your 9 should make that run, but Ronaldo will not. We know that. What's the solution? Then your winger needs to go. Pedro Neto doesn't. He wants the ball in his feet. Again, you will see that 5-3-2 comes back pretty quickly. Now, you have to pass that bus, as you mentioned before. Now, look at the difference straight away. Half-time, Cortesaro comes on for Bernardo Silva. Look at this. It was by design, not by default. You can see straight away a run in behind. What it does? The team drops. Yes, nothing came out of it, but the team dropped. You can see here now, bottom of your screen, Pedro Neto. Usually, he wants the ball in his feet. We saw it in the first half. Now, he runs. Look at him looking at the bench. They didn't play it. Boss, you told me to go. They still don't play it. Look at Ronaldo. Offside position. The team is going to push. That's when you need to make those runs. The Balogun run against Australia. Look here. That's what you need to do in order to feed the big man. Why? Because you make the team of DR Congo and, obviously, Rupert Wakingston drop. Then, you make them defend the box. Then, you create. Joao Felix is going to be there. Pedro Neto is going to be there. Create. Feed the man in the box. The narrative out there, when we talk about Cristiano Ronaldo, nobody hates Cristiano Ronaldo here. When you talk about the game and the situation, you have to call a spade a spade. The guy is great, but in and around him, they need to create stuff for him to score. That's for sure. Okay. Lovely stuff, Thierry. Thank you. Well, Cristiano Ronaldo is