Portugal Beats Spain to Lift Second Europe Nations League Trophy

Portugal has floored Spain 7-5 on penalties after a 2-2 draw on regulation time to win the 2025 Europe Nation League title.

The highly intensive final match was played on Sunday at Allianz Arena with fans of both finalists trooping out in thousands to cheer their national male team.

The Spanish team started the match on very promising note. Their excellent efforts a desired result in 21 minutes of the game, as Martín Zubimendi scored the opening goal for Spain. He smashed a shot from close range after a smart break.

Portugal inspired by iconic Cristiano Ronaldo fought very hard and responded shortly with a 26th minute goal by Nuno Mendes, who recently won the UEFA champions league with his team PSG of France. Mendes took a low shot to beat the goalkeeper for the equalizer. His widely cheered goal by the Portuguese fans marked his first ever goal for Portuguese national team.

Interestingly, the before half-time, Spanish enterprising forward, Mikel Oyarzabal, who scored the winning goal for Spain in last year’s Euro Nations Cup, made it 2-1 for Spain with a Pedri’s pass. His lovely goal ended the first half with Spain leading in the match.

In the second half, Manchester United Captain, Bruno Fernandes scored a stunning equaliser in the 50th minute, but the goal was ruled Neto was offside before passing the ball to him.

However, Cristiano Ronaldo, took a leadership responsibility to level up for Portugal level in the 61st minute of the game through a deflection.The goal marked his epochal 138th international goals.

Immediately Spain reacted and almost scored the third goal in the 84th minute, when Isco”s super shot outside the box was greatly saved by goalkeeper Diogo Costa of Portugal.

Portuguese captain Cristiano Ronaldo was substituted in the 88th minute and he handed the captain’s armband to Bruno Fernandes. Football fans cheered his exit and outstanding performance. After he left, both teams fought so hard for a winning goal during the duration of the match. But their efforts was abortive. The match ended in a 2-2 draw at regulation time of 90 minutes. Afterwards, the have to go for 30 mine extra-time.

During extra-time, Pedro Porro and Diogo Jota made very impressive efforts to put Portugal on the lead. In the same vein, Spanish fantastic players such as Yeremy Pino and tireless Isco, put up outrageous attempts to win the match for Spain. But all their efforts was not fruitful.

Incredibly, both teams maintain the scores at the initial 2-2 draws after 120 minutes of the extra time. Therefore, the match have to go into a deceive penalty shootouts to pick out the champion in the keenly contested championship.

During the penalty shootouts, Portuguese players for the penalty shootouts comprising of and Gonçalo Ramos, Vintiha, Bruno Fernandes, Nuno Mendes and Ruben Neves scored their five penalties. The Spanish set of Álvaro Morata, Isco, Merino and Baena, could only score three penalties. The Portuguese ace goalkeeper, Diogo Costa, made amazing saves to hand over victory to Portugal. His classical save of Alvaro Morata’s penalty shootout is very remarkable, and one of the high points of the game. With the penalty shootouts, Portugal beat Spain by 5-3 on penalties.

The 2025 victory of the UEFA Nations League crowns Portugal as the first team to win the competition twice. They won the maiden edition in 2019.Other winners of UEFA Nations League from inception are: Portugal – 2019 & 2025, Spain – 2023 France – 2021.

By ISAAC