Cucurella, Neto, Veiga start in UEFA Nations League quarterfinals
03/21/2025 01:48 AM
Thursday internationals
While many European nations, including England, are starting their 2026 World Cup qualifying campaigns during this international break, many others are instead still involved in the final stages of the UEFA Nations League. Among them are Spain and Portugal, comprising two of the final eight vying for the "title" of this pseudo-friendly competition.
The defending European champions were taking on the Netherlands in their quarterfinal and looked set to continue to their unbeaten streak after taking the early lead through Nico Williams. But the Dutch fought back, and would take a 2-1 lead into the closing stages, before conceding a late equalizer to Chelsea-vanquishing Mikel Merino.
The 2-2 draw extends Spain's unbeaten run to 16 games in all competitions. Marc Cucurella has played a big part in that run, and he played all 90 minutes last night as well.
Other Chelsea players were less lucky, with Pedro Neto and Renato Veiga suffering a 1-0 defeat with Portugal against Denmark. And it easily could've been worse, with Veiga giving away a penalty in the first half, but Christian Eriksen failed to convert.
Neither João Félix nor Geovany Quenda featured for Portugal, with Neto playing the whole game instead.
In the other two quarterfinals, Germany beat Italy, 2-1 and France suffered a surprisingly comprehensively 2-0 defeat against Croatia. The second legs will be played in a few days.
