Kratovo, Jun 28 (DIN NEWS)<\/b> Portugal defender Bruno Alves said Saturday’s World Cup last-16 clash with Uruguay will be more than simply a battle between Cristiano Ronaldo and Luis Suarez.<\/p>\n
The European champions will face Uruguay in Sochi for a place in the quarter-finals after finishing as runners-up behind Spain in Group B.<\/p>\n
Uruguay won all three of their group matches, beating hosts Russia 3-0 in their last outing, and are the only team yet to concede a goal at the tournament.<\/p>\n
Real Madrid forward Ronaldo has scored four of Portugal’s five goals so far, while Barcelona star Suarez netted against Saudi Arabia and Russia.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think it will be a duel between Suarez and Ronaldo,” Alves said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
“It’s a match between the two teams, Portugal and Uruguay, and we’ll do everything we can to win.”<\/p>\n
Portugal survived a late scare against Iran on Monday, as Ronaldo missed a penalty and was fortunate to escape a red card for an elbow.<\/p>\n
“At this stage we still believe we have room for improvement,” Alves said.<\/p>\n
“I think we will win, but you can’t forget you can only win if you play well and I think we’ll play well.” The 36-year-old Alves is at his third World Cup, although the Rangers centre-back has yet to make an appearance in Russia.<\/p>\n
“I feel that we’re always highly motivated. I think all of us have come here to play and when our moment comes we will be ready for it to help Portugal win,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I think this Portugal team is ready for everything. We’ve shown we have the chance to win and if we keep it up this way I think we’ll be successful. There are difficult games in store for us though.”<\/p>\n
Portugal have not lost a competitive match with Ronaldo in the side since the 2014 World Cup, although they were beaten on penalties by Chile at last year’s Confederations Cup.<\/p>\n
Alves sounded a note of caution following the departure of defending champions Germany.<\/p>\n
“Everybody can see that in this World Cup there are no easy games,” Alves said.<\/p>\n
“Germany’s fate made it clear what can happen to any strong team.” Uruguay are hopeful Jose Maria Gimenez will return from injury to resume his centre-back partnership with Atletico Madrid team-mate Diego Godin.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kratovo, Jun 28 (DIN NEWS) Portugal defender Bruno Alves said Saturday’s World Cup last-16 clash with Uruguay will be more than simply a battle between Cristiano Ronaldo and Luis Suarez. The European champions will face Uruguay in Sochi for a place in the quarter-finals after finishing as runners-up behind Spain in Group B. Uruguay won all three of their group matches, beating hosts Russia 3-0 in their last outing, and are the only team yet to concede a goal at the tournament. Real Madrid forward Ronaldo has scored four of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14173,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14172"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14172"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14174,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14172\/revisions\/14174"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}