Cristiano's showtime, Portugal faces Slovakia with this starting lineup

The Portugal National Team are the leaders of Group J of the qualifiers for Euro 2024 to be played between June and July next year in Germany. So far they have won all the matches they played and have 12 points, two more than their opponents this afternoon, Slovakia. The performances of Roberto Martinez's team have been very satisfactory, as they scored 14 goals and conceded none. They opened with a 4-0 win against Liechtenstein, then beat Luxembourg 6-0, Bosnia 3-0 and Iceland 1-0.

Now they will play against their main competitors, in a match that could be decisive for the qualification to Euro 2024. If they win, Portugal will have a very important advantage with 5 games to go and will practically secure a place in next year's tournament. But if they lose, they will no longer be group leaders.

For this match, Roberto Martinez decided on an XI with most of the stars of the squad, such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Bruno Fernandes and Bernardo Silva, although many top players will be on the bench and will have to wait for their chance to enter in the second half, such as Danilo Pereira, Joao Felix, Goncalo Ramos, Otavio and Diogo Jota.

Portugal's starting lineup will be a 4-4-2 with: Diogo Costa; Diogo Dalot, Antonio Silva, Ruben Dias, Joao Cancelo; Bruno Fernandes, Joao Palinha, Vitinha, Bernardo Silva; Rafael Leao, Cristiano Ronaldo.

They will have some tough opponents

Slovakia have had a great start to the Euro 2024 qualifiers: they opened with a 0-0 draw against Luxembourg, but then managed three consecutive victories against Bosnia (2-0), Iceland (2-1) and Liechtenstein (1-0). For this match, Italian coach Francesco Calzona decided that the starting lineup will be: Martin Dúbravka; Milan Skriniar, Denis Vavro, Dávid Hancko, Peter Pekarik; Stanislav Lobotka, Ondrej Duda, Juraj Kucka; Ivan Schranz, Lukas Haraslin, Róbert Polievka.