Despite being on the pitch for less than five minutes, Pedro Neto played a crucial role in Portugal getting their Euro 2024 campaign off to a winning start against Czechia.
Starting the first group stage game of this summer’s tournament in Germany on the bench alongside his Wolves teammates Jose Sa and Nelson Semedo, Neto had to wait until the 90th minute in Leipzig to get his first taste of action as he was brought on alongside Semedo and Porto’s Francisco Conceicao.
The first 90 minutes saw plenty of chances fall the way of a Portugal side which had former Old Gold midfielder Vitinha lining up in the centre of midfield, with most of those opportunities falling to the boot of Cristiano Ronaldo.
He almost opened the scoring just after the half hour mark when Bruno Fernandes’ through ball bisected the Czechia defence, but Ronaldo’s strike was repelled by Jindrich Stanek, before the goalkeeper pulled off another stop on the stroke of half-time – again from the Portugal skipper – to bring and end to a frustrating 45 minutes for Selecao.
Portugal continued to mount pressure after the interval, but it was Czechia, from a rare counter, who broke the deadlock when Lukas Provod expertly dispatched West Ham United’s Vladimir Coufal’s lay-off in off the far post.
However, Portugal were quickly back on level terms again when Stanek could only parry Nuno Mendes’ header against Robin Hranac and watch the ricochet drop into his net. Portugal thought they had won it when another former Wolves man, Diogo Jota, turned the ball home from a Ronaldo cut-back, but the captain was ruled offside by VAR.
With the game looking like it would end 1-1, on the stroke of 90, Roberto Martinez turned to his bench and the Wolves duo of Neto and Semedo – as well as Conceicao. And it was the former and the latter who combined just two minutes later to secure all three points for their country.
After good work down the left to get past several Czechia markers, Neto’s found space for a cross which – via a deflection – found its way to Conceicao to fire in a close-range winner, and cue wild celebrations.
