Portugal players idolize Cristiano Ronaldo, with many saying it is a “dream” to play with him, but young forward Goncalo Ramos on Saturday joked that he would not accept a piece of chewing gum from his compatriot.
Ronaldo, who scored a penalty in Portugal’s 3-2 win over Ghana on Thursday, was pictured chewing gum he had pulled out of the front of his shorts during the game.
The 37-year-old striker, without a club after an acrimonious split from Manchester United this week, became the first player ever to score at five World Cups.
Photo: Reuters
“Of course not,” laughed Ramos at a news conference, when he was asked if he would take gum from Ronaldo if offered. “Not from him or anyone else, only my brother.”
Ramos said that Ronaldo, the top men’s international goal scorer of all time, was someone that other players looked up to in the Portugal dressing room.
“He’s a reference point for everyone,” Ramos added. “He’s an idol and leads the team, but he’s not the only one. We have others like Bruno Fernandes or Pepe, who can also lead and help Cristiano.”
SL Benfica forward Ramos, 21, appeared as a substitute against Ghana and is looking forward to facing his former teammate Darwin Nunez when Portugal play Uruguay today.
Nunez moved to Liverpool in the summer for £85 million (US$102.77 million).
“He’s a great player and as well as being my former teammate, he’s my friend, [but] we’re well prepared to face him,” Ramos said.
Portugal on Saturday trained with 24 of the 26-man squad involved, while Otavio and Nuno Mendes, the latter of whom missed the first game with muscular fatigue, did recovery work in the gym.
Taiwanese tennis veteran Hsieh Su-wei (謝淑薇) and her Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko finished runners-up in the Wimbledon women's doubles final yesterday, losing 6-3, 2-6, 4-6. The three-set match against Veronika Kudermetova of Russia and Elise Mertens of Belgium lasted two hours and 23 minutes. The loss denied 39-year-old Hsieh a chance to claim her 10th Grand Slam title. Although the Taiwanese-Latvian duo trailed 1-3 in the opening set, they rallied with two service breaks to take it 6-3. In the second set, Mertens and Kudermetova raced to a 5-1 lead and wrapped it up 6-2 to even the match. In the final set, Hsieh and
Taiwanese tennis veteran Hsieh Su-wei and her Latvian partner, Jelena Ostapenko, advanced to the Wimbledon women’s doubles final on Friday, defeating top seeds Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic and Taylor Townsend of the US in straight sets. The fourth-seeded duo bounced back quickly after losing their opening service game, capitalizing on frequent unforced errors by their opponents to take the first set 7-5. Maintaining their momentum in the second set, Hsieh and Ostapenko broke serve early and held their lead to close out the match 6-4. They are set to face the eighth-seeded pair of Veronika Kudermetova of Russia and Elise Mertens
Outside Anfield, the red sea of tributes to Diogo Jota and his brother, Andre Silva, has continued to grow this week, along with questions over whether Liverpool could play at Preston today, their first game since the brothers’ tragic loss. Inside Anfield, and specifically a grieving Liverpool dressing room, there was no major debate over the pre-season friendly. The English Premier League champions intend to honor their teammate in the best way they know how. It would be only 10 days since the deaths of Jota and Silva when Liverpool appear at Deepdale Stadium for what is certain to be a hugely
ON A KNEE: In the MLB’s equivalent of soccer’s penalty-kicks shoot-out, the game was decided by three batters from each side taking three swings each off coaches Kyle Schwarber was nervous. He had played in Game 7 of the MLB World Series and homered for the US in the World Baseball Classic (WBC), but he had never walked up to the plate in an All-Star Game swing-off. No one had. “That’s kind of like the baseball version of a shoot-out,” Schwarber said after homering on all three of his swings, going down to his left knee on the final one, to overcome a two-homer deficit. That held up when Jonathan Aranda fell short on the American League’s final three swings, giving the National League a 4-3 swing-off win after