Brighton ace makes Portugal and Ronaldo claim after World Cup debut defeat

It was match that saw Cristiano Ronaldo make World Cup history two days after severing ties with Manchester United as Portugal opened their campaign with a narrow win.

Ronaldo, who is a free agent after his acrimonious Old Trafford break-up, became the first man to score in five World Cup final tournaments when he tucked away Portugal’s first from the penalty spot.

Andre Ayew’s equaliser briefly looked like it would spoil Portugal’s party, but a quickfire double from Joao Felix and substitute Rafael Leao gave them a two-goal advantage.

Osman Bukari halved it with an 89th-minute header but Portugal held on through nine minutes of injury time to seize the initiative in Group H, where Uruguay and South Korea earlier played out a goalless draw.

Lamptey was unable to make the starting XI but was introduced as substitute on 66 minutes as he replaced Alidu Seidu to make his World Cup debut.

“I think it's a bittersweet moment for me,” Lamptey said to to our sister title National World after the match. “I wish we would have had the win on my debut at the World Cup but thank God for giving me the opportunity. I need to keep working hard as possible and hopefully we can get the win in the next game.”

Ghana are next in Group H action on Monday as they take on South Korea in the 1pm kick-off.

Lamptey added: “We have to build on the positives that we had and we need to look forward. I know the emotions are hard because we know that we played well but we also know that we could have gotten something out of this game. We will make sure we put our energy into the game and make sure we give it our best.

“We’ve always believed in ourselves and believed that we can progress. We will regroup and put our all into the next game and hopefully we can get the results and move on. We always have the confidence and we just stuck to the game plan and I know that on another day we would have got a good result.”