Cristiano Ronaldo leads Portugal against Ghana and other World Cup news and highlights

That’s the end of the action on Day 5 of the World Cup, as Brazil brings things to a close with a 2-0 win over Serbia.

Every team has now played in Qatar, with England, Spain, France and Brazil the standout performers so far, with Saudi Arabia and Japan delivering major upsets by beating Argentina and Germany.

There are four more matches on Friday, as host Qatar faces Senegal and looks to put a disappointing opening day loss behind it, while England looks to secure its place in the knockout stages with a win against the United States Men’s National Team.

Join us then.

Neymar of Brazil lies on the turf with his face contorted in pain, holding his ankle. Photo: Robert Michael/dpa (Photo by Robert Michael/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Brazil’s joy following its 2-0 win over Serbia appeared to be dampened almost immediately as it became apparent star man Neymar suffered a significant ankle injury.

The Paris Saint-Germain forward was substituted with 10 minutes remaining after going down under a challenge and Neymar looked emotional once he got to the bench, sitting down and covering his face with his shirt.

Neymar's swollen ankle as he leaves the field.

Cameras caught Neymar looking down at his ankle, which appeared to be very swollen as he made his way off the pitch.

It will no doubt be a huge concern to Brazil – and football fans around the world – whose chances of success would decrease considerably without Neymar.

Spain's forward #11 Ferran Torres scores a penalty during the Qatar 2022 World Cup Group E football match between Spain and Costa Rica at the Al-Thumama Stadium in Doha on November 23.

So 16 games played, with another 48 matches to go at the 2022 World Cup. There have been four 0-0 draws already – Russia 2018 only saw one – but a few teams have recorded statement wins.

England arrived in Qatar having endured the worst buildup to a World Cup in its history. But Gareth Southgate’s team dispelled any criticism by thrashing Iran 6-2, its second largest victory at the tournament.

Likewise, France came to the World Cup having lost its dynamic midfield duo of Paul Pogba and N’Golo Kanté to injury, not to mention Ballon d’Or winner Karim Benzema.

After going behind to Australia early on it looked like the curse of the defending champion would strike France just as it had the previous four winners in their opening games. But a brace from Olivier Giroud and goals from Adrian Rabiot and Kylian Mbappé sealed a French comeback and a flying start to its World Cup defence.

Spain’s 7-0 thrashing of Costa Rica set a new level of excellence at Qatar 2022 – arguably the most dominant performance in a World Cup game this century. Not only did La Roja score seven, but Luis Enrique’s side did not let Costa Rica take a single shot during the 90 minutes. Dominance.

Meanwhile, Brazil carries the heavy burden as pre-tournament favorite, and it showed in a difficult first half against Serbia. Then Richarlison got to work, grabbing a double, including an early contender for goal of the tournament with an acrobatic finish to give the Seleção a 2-0 win.

Brazil showed its unbelievable attacking depth as Neymar Jr. and younger stars like Vinicius Jr., Raphinha, Richarlisan and Rodrygo took center stage in a new and thrilling Brazil side looking to showcase a 2022 edition of jogo bonito (the beautiful game) at the World Cup.

However, the biggest winners of the first round of fixtures were arguably not from Europe or South America, but from Asia.

Saudi Arabia came into the tournament as one of the lowest ranked sides and with an unknown team entirely hailing from domestic club football.

In the path of the Green Falcons was an Argentina side unbeaten in 36 games and led by Lionel Messi in his pursuit of the only trophy that has eluded him in his glittering career.

But the Saudis were not daunted, coming from behind to score two brilliant goals and cause the biggest upset in World Cup history.

Just a day later, Japan followed up with a seismic shock of its own, turning over Germany. Like Saudi Arabia, the Samurai Blue went behind to a first-half penalty, but turned it around to earn the most famous win in Japan’s history.

Neymar celebrates Brazil's first goal, which he helped create.

Job done for Brazil in its opening match of Qatar 2022.

It wasn’t always pretty – the first half in particular was a slog – but the Seleção certainly improved as the second half wore on and were worthy winners thanks to Richarlison’s two goals.

That second goal, a stunner from Richarlison, really broke the Serbians’ resolve and Brazil finally began to play some jogo bonito, which was greeted by ‘olés’ from the stands.

It wasn’t vintage Brazil, but Tite’s iteration of the national team is known as much for its pragmatism as its aesthetics.

Richarlison scores his spectacular second goal against Serbia.

What. A. Goal.

Richarlison produces a stunning acrobatic finish to bag his and Brazil’s second goal of the game.

It looks like a long way back now for Serbia.

Richarlison celebrates his opening goal next to Neymar.

It took more than an hour, but that Brazil goal had been coming.

It was created by Neymar Jr., who danced his way through the Serbia defense to set up a shot for Vinicius Jr.

The effort is well saved by Vanja Milinkovic-Savic, but Richarlison is on hand to prod home the rebound.

The Welsh Football Association (FAW) said FIFA told the federation on Thursday that rainbow-colored flags and hats will be permitted in FIFA World Cup stadiums in Qatar.

“In response to the FAW, FIFA has confirmed that fans with Rainbow Wall bucket hats and rainbow flags will be allowed entry to the stadium for @Cymru’s match against Iran on Friday,” FAW said in a statement on its official Twitter account.

“All World Cup venues have been contacted and instructed to follow the agreed rules & regulations,” it said.

It added: “The FAW urges FIFA to adhere to their message that everybody will be welcome in Qatar during the World Cup and continue to highlight any further human rights issues. We remain with the belief that football is for EVERYONE.”

Here’s some background: Ahead of Wales’ opening World Cup fixture against the USA, Laura McAllister, who captained the Welsh women’s national football team in the 1990s, says she was stopped by security officials and had her rainbow-colored hat confiscated before she was allowed to enter the stadium to watch Wales play against the United States.

The FAW’s CEO spoke to Sky Sports on Thursday about that incident and others like it, before detailing the FAW’s response.

“To have them [the rainbow hats] taken off the heads of our supporters, our own staff are amongst them, that was quite a shaky experience,” Neil Mooney said. “We were really appalled by that. We wrote to FIFA and said: ‘Look, we were promised an open, inclusive World Cup – and that’s not the case here.’

“FIFA got in contact with me to say: ‘Look, that was a localized issue in the stadium’ – that’s a little bit strange because it’s happened in other stadiums as well. Thankfully they’ve got back to us just in the last couple of hours, in writing, to say our fans can wear rainbow-related clothing tomorrow.”

CNN reached out to FIFA for official comment and were directed to FAW’s tweet.

Next up: Wales face Iran in a crucial Group B match on Friday.

An early chance in the second half for Brazil after a Serbian defensive error, but goalkeeper Vanja Milinkovic-Savic saves well.

It could be a busy half for the Serbian stopper.

Serbian goalkeeper Vanja Milinkovic-Savic gathers the ball next to Brazil's Thiago Silva.

Not much to write home about after the opening 45 minutes.

Brazil has certainly been the more dominant side but has failed to create any chances of real note.

Casemiro had a pop from long range that stung the palms of Vanja Milinkovic-Savic but Serbia’s defense has so far done a good job to stifle Brazil’s considerable attacking talent.

Serbia's starting 11 pose before the Brazil match. Goalkeeper Milinkovic-Savic, top right, is standing next to his brother, Sergej.

Thursday will be a day of great pride for the Milinkovic-Savic family, as brothers Sergej and Vanja take to the pitch for Serbia’s World Cup Group G match against Brazil.

Vanja is Serbia’s first choice goalkeeper, while Sergej is the team’s star midfielder and a wonderful player that has drawn interest from some of Europe’s biggest clubs.

The duo are one of five pairs of brothers playing at the World Cup in Qatar, with Lucas and Theo Hernandez (France), Andre and Jordan Ayew (Ghana), Eden and Thorgan Hazard (Belgium) and Iñaki and Nico Williams being the others.

Interestingly, the Williams brothers are the only siblings not playing for the same team as Iñaki represents his parents’ native Ghana and Nico represents Spain, his country of birth.

Cristiano Ronaldo attends the post-match news conference on Thursday.

Despite winning player of the match and becoming the first man to score in five World Cups, Cristiano Ronaldo wasn’t in a talkative mood after Portugal’s 3-2 Group H win over Ghana.

After the coaches of Portugal and Ghana spoke to reporters, it was Ronaldo’s turn to answer questions.

The superstar was smiling when he walked in, but before many journalists in the room could even start recording what he was saying, Ronaldo was off again.

The 37-year-old delivered a very short answer in Portuguese when asked about his eventful week – he left Manchester United on Tuesday – and record-breaking achievement at Qatar 2022.

One journalist estimated that Ronaldo was in the room for just two minutes before leaving. He was certainly talking for even less time than that.

A Brazil fan displays a cardboard cutout of Neymar before the Serbia match.

The Brazil team’s distinctive yellow jersey is a symbol that unites the country through a love of football and national pride, but in recent years the shirt’s adoption by right wing supporters of outgoing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who have worn it at protests and rallies to show their political allegiance to the 67-year-old politician, has provoked controversy.

Walter Casagrande, a former footballer for the Brazilian national team and São Paulo club Corinthians, remembers the feeling of scoring a goal while wearing the yellow jersey in his first match with the “Selecao” in 1985.

“It was a magical thing,” Casagrande told CNN Sport in 2020, “like an enchanted object that gave me huge emotion.

“Now I consider the Brazilian yellow jersey to have been kidnapped and appropriated by the right wing, so we cannot use it,” added Casagrande, whose sentiments lie on the left side of the political chasm.

Just days ahead of Brazil’s national elections in October, national team star Neymar Jr. appeared in a campaign video endorsing Bolsonaro.

“The best player [of the current generation], a genius, is someone who divides Brazil in half because he’s shown himself to be a Bolsonarista and more than half the country is against Bolsonaro, so it’s difficult to be loved [as much as the players of 1982],” Brazilian commentator and journalist Juca Kfouri told CNN Sport.

The 1982 Brazil generation has often been described as the best team to have never won the World Cup.

Last month’s heated election came amid a tense and polarized political climate in Brazil, which has been struggling with high inflation, limited growth and rising poverty.

Bolsonaro’s leftist rival Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, popularly known as “Lula,” who is due to be inaugurated as president on January 1, received more than 60 million votes – according to the election authority’s final tally – the most in Brazilian history and breaking his own record from 2006.

Brazil's Raphinha, left, makes a pass next to Serbian defender Filip Mladenovic during their match on Thursday.

We are underway at the Lusail Stadium!

There’s a sense that it isn’t a World Cup until Brazil play and get their tournament underway.

But the five-time winner often has the weight of the world on its shoulders given the expectations of Brazilian fans.

The world’s most successful team is once again favorites to lift a sixth World Cup, but it first needs to get past an exciting Serbian team that has been touted as ‘dark horses’ by many.

Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo does his trademark goal celebration Thursday after converting a penalty against Ghana to become the first man in history to score in five World Cups.

Cristiano Ronaldo made history on Thursday as he became the first man in history to score in five FIFA World Cups, leading Portugal to a 3-2 victory over Ghana at Stadium 974 in Qatar.

The Portugal captain kickstarted a flurry of goals in the 65th minute when he converted a penalty to put his team ahead 1-0.

The 37-year-old, who is playing in a record-equaling fifth World Cup, remains two goals shy of passing Eusebio (9) to become the nation’s leading goal scorer in tournament history.

Ghana, though, wasted no time in leveling the score as Andre Ayew equalized in the 73th minute.

But Ghana’s joy was short lived as Portugal scored two successive goals in just under three minutes through João Félix and Rafael Leão.

Osman Bukari scored a late consolation goal for Ghana in the 89th minute but Portugal held on for the victory.

Ghana’s Iñaki Williams nearly provided the ultimate drama in the final minute of the match as he stole the ball from Portugal’s goalkeeper after hiding behind him - only to slip at the crucial moment.

Brazilian star Neymar walks onto the pitch for warmups on Thursday.

Pre-tournament favorite Brazil and Serbia will be the last two teams to get their World Cup tournaments underway when they meet at the Lusail Stadium.

Five-time champion Brazil arguably boasts the best attacking line-up in the tournament, both in terms of quality and depth.

Neymar Jr. – like Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi – is searching for his first World Cup title, and the Paris Saint-Germain star will be ably supported upfront by Real Madrid’s Vinicius Jr., Barcelona’s Raphinha, and Tottenham Hotspur’s Richarlison.

But Serbia, which topped its World Cup qualifying group ahead of Portugal, will be no pushover and has plenty of goalscoring prowess in captain Dušan Tadić, Juventus forward Dušan Vlahović, and Fulham striker Aleksandar Mitrović. However, Vlahović and Mitrović have both been nursing injuries ahead of the tournament.

Hoping to reach the knockout stages of a World Cup for the first time, Serbia will likely have to battle it out with Switzerland and Cameroon, who face each other on Thursday, to reach the round of 16 – barring any disastrous results for Brazil.

But as this World Cup has demonstrated so far, don’t rule out any eventuality.

Brazil

Manager: Tite

Goalkeepers: Alisson, Ederson, Weverton

Defenders: Alex Sandro, Alex Telles, Dani Alves, Danilo, Bremer, Éder Militão, Marquinhos, Thiago Silva

Midfielders: Bruno Guimarães, Casemiro, Éverton Ribeiro, Fabinho, Fred, Lucas Paquetá

Forwards: Antony, Gabriel Jesus, Gabriel Martinelli, Neymar Jr., Pedro, Raphinha, Richarlison, Rodrygo, Vinícius Jr.

Starting XI: Alisson; Danilo, Marquinhos, Thiago Silva, Alex Sandro; Casemiro, Lucas Paqueta; Raphinha, Neymar, Vinicius Jr; Richarlison

Serbia

Manager: Dragan Stojković

Goalkeepers: Predrag Rajković, Marko Dmitrović, Vanja Milinković Savić

Defenders: Nikola Milenković, Stefan Mitrović, Strahinja Pavlović, Miloš Veljković, Filip Mladenović, Srđan Babić, Strahinja Eraković

Midfielders: Nemanja Gudelj, Sergej Milinković Savić, Saša Lukić, Marko Grujić, Filip Kostić, Uroš Račić, Nemanja Maksimović, Ivan Ilić, Andrija Živković, Darko Lazović

Forwards: Dušan Tadić, Aleksandar Mitrović, Luka Jović, Dušan Vlahović, Filip Đuričić, Nemanja Radonjić

Starting XI: V Milinkovic-Savic; Veljkovic, Milenkovic, Pavlovic; Zivkovic, Lukic, Gudelj, Mladenovic; Tadic, S Milinkovic-Savic; A Mitrovic

—–

Jakob Jensen, CEO of the Danish Football Association, talks to CNN on Thursday.

The CEO of the Danish Football Association (DBU) told CNN the players at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar should not have to lead messaging around human rights. 

Pressed by CNN’s Becky Anderson on whether he’d allow the Danish captain to wear the rainbow-colored “OneLove” armband if he so desired, Jakob Jensen said: “I think it’s not the responsibility of the players to discuss human rights in Qatar and to discuss the decisions of FIFA.

Denmark was one of seven countries planning to wear the armband during its World Cup campaign before withdrawing at the final moment due to FIFA’s threat of sporting sanctions.

The armband features a numerical No. 1 within a striped heart in different colors to represent all heritages, backgrounds, genders and sexual identities.

“The sanction in hand was not just a yellow card – it was at the very minimum a yellow card,” Jensen told Anderson when asked if making the statement was worth a yellow card.

“It could have been that the captain was not allowed to enter the pitch, that he was not allowed to enter the next match. That’s why we chose to do as we did.”

Jensen denied that the DBU planned to leave FIFA, but confirmed their refusal to support president Gianni Infantino in the upcoming FIFA presidency election.

Last Friday, the president of the German Football Association said the organization did not support current Infantino’s re-election to the role.

FIFA announced last Thursday that Infantino will run unopposed for the next term of the organization’s presidency. It will be Infantino’s third term as president of world football’s governing body.

Jensen confirmed the DBU are investigating “legal opportunities” as a result of the armband controversy, although he admitted that “there is a not a big chance we will have legal success.”

Asked about if the team had planned messaging similar to Germany’s players covering their mouths, Jensen said: “What we’re doing cannot be boiled down to what we’re going to do at one match.

“We’ve been coming here [to Qatar] for seven years with one message – human rights for all – and that’s still our message.”

Denmark’s next match at the tournament is on Saturday against reigning champion France at Stadium 974.

Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo became the first man to score in five World Cups.

After a goalless first half, that second 45 minutes was some of the best entertainment we’ve had so far at this World Cup.

Portugal was certainly made to work hard for its win, but goals from Cristiano Ronaldo, João Félix and Rafael Leão gives Fernando Santos’ side a crucial three points.

Ghana will be left to rue some sloppy defending and will feel as though that is a missed opportunity to come away with a point.

In a truly wild finish to a wild half, Iñaki Williams hid behind Portugal goalkeeper Diogo Costa and waited for him to roll the ball onto the floor before pouncing.

Unfortunately for Williams, he slipped at the crucial moment as he tried to get control of the ball and was unable to convert.

Ronaldo’s exasperated expression on the bench said it all.

Osman Bukari celebrates after scoring Ghana's second goal.

Osman Bukari appears completely unmarked at the far post to head home and make it 3-2.

Hope now for Ghana with injury time remaining!

Lots of stoppage time has become a feature of this World Cup – and Ghana has NINE minutes to try and find an equalizer.

Bukari opted to pull out Ronaldo’s famous celebration, which seems unusual when your team is still losing.

Rafael Leão scores Portugal's third goal Thursday.

Rafael Leão gives Portugal a two-goal lead and surely that is game over.

Just two minutes and 15 seconds between Portugal’s second and third goals – Ghana will be wondering just how it is two goals down.

It was another brilliant counterattack from the Portuguese, finished off superbly by Leão after Bruno Fernandes’ through ball.

Ghana’s defense looks awfully exposed now as the African side tries to find a way back into this match.