Two goals from Cristiano Ronaldo and one each from Hugo Almeida and Danny gave Portugal a 4-0 away win over 10-man Cyprus in Euro 2012 qualifying on Friday.
Ronaldo scored Portugal's first goal in the 35th minute from the penalty spot after defender Sinisa Dobrasinovic was deemed to have handled the ball inside the box. The foul earned Dobrasinovic a second yellow card, reducing Cyprus to 10 men before halftime.
Ronaldo's second came in the 82nd when he shook off a defender with a neat give-and-go and blasted the ball past Cyprus goalkeeper Antonis Georgallides from inside the box.
Ronaldo figured in Portugal's third goal when he fed an unmarked Almeida inside the box, who slotted the ball past an out-of-position Georgallidis.
Danny finished off the Cypriots with a goal in injury time.
''We have this result because we played very well as a team, we had confidence and we were focused. We'll continue to fight to stay on top of the group,'' Portugal coach Paolo Bento said, adding that the penalty was awarded to his team fairly.
The win puts Portugal on top of Group H along with Norway with 13 points, followed by Denmark with 10, Cyprus with two and Iceland with a single point.
Bento in the end didn't miss the services of defender Ricardo Carvalho, who stormed out of a training camp ahead of the match against Cyprus and announced his decision to quit international football.
Georgallides kept the scoreline low in the first half with a string of saves, including one in the 12th when he came off his line to stop a shot from Joao Pereira when the Portuguese player was clean through.
Georgallides again did well to block a Pepe header from point-blank range in the 17th and saved another goal in the 31st when he gathered in a loose ball after a goalmouth scramble.
The Cypriot goalkeeper pushed wide a low, hard shot from long range by Postiga in the 44th and blocked a Ronaldo shot from inside the box early in the second half.
Portugal came close in the 57th when Ronaldo fed a pass to Fabio Coentrao whose 20-yard blast eluded Georgallidis, struck the inside of the bar and rolled parallel to the goalline before going out for a goalkick.
Cyprus coach Nikos Nioplias said the game turned for his team when Portugal was awarded the penalty and his team was left shorthanded.
''I'm under the impression that it would have been a different match if we weren't reduced to 10 men,'' he said. ''The moment the favorites went ahead in the scoreline and we were left with one player less and we had conditioning problems, this showed in the last 10 minutes when the collapse happened.''
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Lineups:
Cyprus: Antonis Georgallidis, Paraskevas Christou, Georgios Merkis, Ioannis Okkas, Constantinos Charalambides (Nectarios Alexandrou, 63') Konstantinos Makridis (Marios Nicolaou, 38'), Dimitris Christofi (George Efrem, 80') Sinisa Dobrasinovic (red card, 34'), Andreas Avraam, Savvas Poursaitidis, Jason Demetriou.
Portugal: Rui Patricio, Bruno Alves, Pepe, Fabio Coentrao, Cristiano Ronaldo, Joao Moutinho, Ruben Micael (Miguel Veloso, 64) Raul Moirolos, Nani (Danny, 85') Joao Pereira, Helder Postiga (Hugo Almeida, 75').
