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European champions Portugal comfortably dispatched New Zealand 4-0 to reach the Confederations Cup semi-finals on Sunday (AEST) after Cristiano Ronaldo set them on their way with a penalty.
Portugal's all-time leading scorer swept the ball home in the 33rd minute, his 75th goal for his country, and Bernardo Silva added the second four minutes later.
A solo effort from Andre Silva, his eighth goal in 11 appearances, in the 80th minute and a stoppage-time goal from substitute Nani completed the scoring.
It was a typically efficient performance from Portugal, who never looked in real danger despite a sluggish start.
However, it was not all good news as Bernardo Silva went off injured at halftime, while a needless and reckless challenge from Pepe, with his side 2-0 up, earned the controversial central defender his second yellow card of the tournament, ruling him out of Wednesday's semi-final.
"It was an odd game — we were in control, but they started creating problems, and if it had got back to 2-1, it could have got complicated," said Portugal coach Fernando Santos.
The Oceania champions were far from disgraced but have now competed in the tournament four times without winning a game and have an overall record of 11 defeats and a draw in 12 matches.
Even so, coach Anthony Hudson was proud of his side, who refused to shut up shop in the second half.
"We know we've played some really good football at times. We never stopped. We created chances, we put them under pressure, so we could have got a little more out of this tournament," he told reporters.
Mexico forward Hirving Lozano took advantage of an awful mix-up in the Russian defence to score an extraordinary goal which gave his side a 2-1 win and knocked the Confederations Cup hosts out of the tournament.
Russia goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev completely misread the situation after Hector Herrera sent a looping clearance 80 metres downfield from the edge of the Mexican area seven minutes into the second half.
The ball bounced once about 25 metres from the Russian goal and, as Akinfeev and his defence dallied, Lozano nipped in to head the ball over the goalkeeper from the edge of the area to send the CONCACAF champions into the semi-finals.
Russia had raised the hopes of their fans by taking a first-half lead through Alexander Samedov but were quickly pegged back by Nestor Araujo's equaliser on the half hour.
Russia's early exit was another setback for next year's World Cup hosts, who also went out of last year's European Championship at the group stage when they failed to win a game and were regarded by many as the worst team in the tournament.
Russia's afternoon was completed in the 68th minute after Yury Zhirkov was sent off for elbowing and they were only saved further embarrassment by the video assistant referee, who disallowed a third Mexican goal for offside.
Reuters
Topics: soccer, sport, russian-federation