Ronaldo Double Powers Portugal to a 5-0 Rout of Uzbekistan

Portugal needed a statement and Cristiano Ronaldo gave them one, scoring twice in a 5-0 rout of Uzbekistan that swept away the doubts of their opening week and moved them to the top of Group K. Ronaldo had been under heavy scrutiny after labouring through a 1-1 draw with DR Congo, and the response, his and his team's, could hardly have been more emphatic. By the end he was the first player to score at six different World Cups, his nation's outright leading scorer at the tournament, and the subject, once again, of an argument about the best player the game has produced. At 41, he is still setting the terms of that debate.

He did not keep anyone waiting. In the sixth minute Ronaldo latched onto Joao Cancelo's deft low cross and steered it beyond Abduvohid Nematov, then charged towards the bench to celebrate with the substitutes, a deliberate show of togetherness from a player who knows how the story around him is told. The goal made history on its own terms, but it was the way it arrived, sharp and certain, that answered the questions about him most directly.

Ronaldo Answers the Critics

Nuno Mendes doubled the lead on 17 minutes with a free-kick of real quality, using Ronaldo as a decoy before bending it into the far corner. Ronaldo restored top billing on 39, bending his run to meet a perfectly weighted Bruno Fernandes through ball and firing accurately across Nematov for Portugal's third and his own second of the night. That took his personal World Cup tally to 10, and confirmed Martinez's decision to start him, made against a backdrop of fierce criticism, as the correct one. "He is the man," said Roy Keane on ITV's coverage, and on this evidence it was hard to argue.

The numbers around Ronaldo continue to read like something invented. The man with 975 career goals is now alone in the number of World Cups he has scored at, with six, a mark that not even Lionel Messi can match. After Messi's own bright start to this tournament, five goals already for Argentina, a swing back towards Ronaldo in the endless greatest-player conversation was always likely, and his afternoon in Houston gave it fresh fuel. The discussion stays open-ended, which is rather the point of it.

Portugal Finish the Job

With the game won by half-time, the second period drifted, as one-sided matches tend to. Nematov turned a clever Portugal set-piece routine into his own net on 60 minutes, the ball rebounding awkwardly off Abdukodir Khusanov, and Rafael Leao hammered a late fifth into the top corner on 87. Ronaldo had chances to complete a hat-trick and wasted them, which on another night might have been the headline. Here it barely registered. Uzbekistan, who had a stunning Aziz Ganiev effort ruled out by VAR for a foul in the build-up on 29 minutes, were well beaten long before the closing stages.

Keane, watching as a man not given to easy praise, kept returning to the same theme. "What you have to admire about Ronaldo is the hunger, the desire. Desperate to get more goals," he said. "At the highest level, it's about one-touch finishing. His body position is always right." It was a fair summary of a forward who has lost a yard but none of the instinct, and whose appetite for the next goal remains the example his younger team-mates take from him.

Verdict: Portugal Arrive, and So Does Their Captain

This was the Portugal that had gone missing in their opener. Where the 1-1 draw with DR Congo had been flat and short of ideas, this was crisp, ruthless and built around a captain who looked entirely himself. Roberto Martinez's side now sit in pole position to top Group K, a turnaround in mood as much as in points, and the manager's loyalty to Ronaldo has been repaid in the most direct currency there is.

For Uzbekistan the night was chastening after their opening 3-1 defeat to Colombia, and they will regroup for their final group game. Portugal, meanwhile, will travel on with their belief restored and their talisman back in the goals. Ronaldo has spent a fortnight being told his World Cup might be a step too far. He has answered it, as he so often has, with the only response that ever really silences the question. He scored, and then he scored again.

Sources: Match report, scoring sequence, key moments, attendance and the records and context around Cristiano Ronaldo's six World Cups and Portugal tally, along with Roy Keane's ITV analysis, as reported in Sky Sports' coverage of Portugal 5-0 Uzbekistan at the World Cup.