Portugal wins without Cristiano Ronaldo as Scotland’s decline in Israel. Jose Mourinho saw Serbia cruise to victory while Bernardo Silva inspired a Portuguese side without Cristiano Ronaldo when the Nations League resumed Thursday.
The Manchester United manager was in Montenegro when Fulham’s Aleksandar Mitrovic double helped Serbia win 2-0 over their rivals in Podgorica. Mitrovic converted an early penalty and scored again in 81 minutes to leave the Serbia top of Group C4 with seven points.
Portugal was also victorious and took control of a competitive group A3 with a 3-2 victory over Poland in Chorzow. Miss Captain Ronaldo secured Portugal their second win from two and left Poland and Italy at some point, but they had to come from behind. Krzysztof Piatek’s headline had given the hosts the lead, but Andre Silva and Kamil Gil’s own goal reversed the game before Manchester City’s Silva scored a fine individual goal to stretch his side further.
Jakub Blaszczykowski scored Poland’s second 77 minutes into the game, but Portugal was in the lead. In Group C1, Scotland was reduced to 10 men when they lost 2-1 to Israel in Haifa. Charlie Mulgrew struck the 25 minutes into the game after stopping a shot by the visitors’ Steven Naismith.
Thus, the second half-equalizer of Dor Peretz followed by John Souttar being redone to another yellow card, and Kieran Tierney’s own goal sealed a home victory leaving Scotland, Israel, and Albania on three points. Elsewhere, Romania moved to second place in Group C4 after a dramatic win against Lithuania in Vilnius. Alexandru Chipciu gave the guests a lead after 89 minutes when Arturas Zulpa equalized. Alexandru Maxim then scored in the fourth minute of the game stopping time to seal what had become an unlikely victory.