This bitching and moaning about the new format and Portugal having an easy couloir has become tiresome. I don't like Cristiano Ronaldo either, as a person, but he is definitely up there with Messi one of the best in the world. While Messi is the most talented, Ronaldo is the harder worker and the more ambitious of the two. It's quite impressive he was able to keep such a rhythm for such a long period of time. Messi already had a few spells where he looked really burnt-out. And the Portugal team is by no means a weak one. Perhaps it's not the best but so are this tournaments with knock-out stages. Sometimes teams win just because at a corner the ball bounced off of someone's a$$ in the net.

I don't agree with the way some of you dismiss the teams Portugal played against. Croatia beat Spain and Germany only managed a draw against Poland. I think they proved they are strong teams. And Portugal didn't have it easy with them either. They needed 240 minutes to beat them... and penalties. (30 minutes shy of playing the length of another game ) Hardly a stroll in the park.

Some of you seem to be stuck in the past with the historically big names. This 24-teams tournament showed that gap between the 'big' and 'small' teams has narrowed a lot.