Manchester United winger Nani helped Portugal stay in the World Cup 2014 after scoring one of the goals in the 2-2 draw with the USA. This was the second group match for Portugal and they were coming on the back of heavy 4-0 defeat at the hands of Germany in the opening match. As a result, they needed to get a result at all costs in order to stay in the tournament. Nani, who has been heavily linked with a move in the last few weeks, put his concentration on the football and scored the opening goal after just five minutes.
This came after a fortunate deflection laid the ball onto the path of Nani. However, Portugal were stunned after the United States managed to take the lead before the 82nd minute. The United States had been threatening to come up with an equaliser for much of the match and it finally came through a stunning shot from Jones. This was followed by a goal from Dempsey just nine minutes before the final whistle. However, the United States were unable to hold onto this slender advantage after they conceded in injury time. Cristiano Ronaldo crossed the ball with great perfection for Silvestre Varela to head home the equaliser.
Portugal face Ghana in the final match of the group stages. “It’s clearly not a good result for us. The 2-2 doesn’t put us out of the World Cup mathematically, but it does leave us in a very difficult situation. Not just because of what we’ll need to do against Ghana, but also because we’ll need a favourable result from the Germany-United States game. We were unlucky late in the first half, but it was a great effort to level the match (in second-half stoppage time),” said Portugal boss Paulo Bento after the match.