Parrott Scores Twice as Ireland Beat Portugal in Dublin

Ireland beat Portugal 2-0 at the Aviva Stadium on Thursday, November 13, in the best result of their World Cup qualifying campaign. Troy Parrott scored twice before halftime, Cristiano Ronaldo was sent off with half an hour to play, and a group that has punished every Irish slip this year suddenly has Ireland in it with one game left.

The opener came from Parrott's own work. His pressing forced an error from Portugal goalkeeper Diogo Costa and won a corner, and from that corner Liam Scales rose to knock the ball down for Parrott to head in from close range in the 17th minute. The Aviva had barely settled when he did it again. Dara O'Shea's long ball over the top released him in the 45th minute, he outpaced his marker, drove into the box and drilled a low finish inside the near post. Two chances in open play all half, two goals.

Portugal's night collapsed on the hour. Ronaldo, chasing a game his team had controlled in possession but not on the scoreboard, caught O'Shea with an off-the-ball elbow and was booked. Referee Glenn Nyberg was sent to the screen, reviewed it, and upgraded the yellow to a straight red card in the 62nd minute. It's the first red card of Ronaldo's international career, in his 226th appearance for Portugal. He's suspended for Sunday's home game against Armenia, and because the dismissal was for violent conduct, there's a reported risk the ban could stretch beyond one match.

The stakes explain the volume from a crowd of 50,717. Hungary's 1-0 win in Armenia earlier in the day meant an Ireland defeat would have ended the campaign with a game to spare. Instead Ireland are a point behind Hungary in Group F, and a win in Budapest on Sunday takes them into the World Cup play-offs. Portugal's arithmetic flipped the other way: a win in Dublin would have qualified them, and now they need to beat Armenia at home on Sunday to book their place automatically, without their captain.

The defensive hour deserves its share of the credit. Portugal pushed after the red card anyway, and Ireland's back line, with Caoimhín Kelleher behind it, kept a clean sheet against a side ranked fifth in the world. Portugal coach Roberto Martínez called it a game to forget and took his first defeat in a World Cup qualifier. For Ireland coach Heimir Hallgrímsson, it's the biggest win of his tenure, and it buys his team the only thing this group has never given them: a final day that matters.

What Parrott did on Thursday is the simplest version of the story: two first-half finishes, one with his head and one with his right foot, against the fifth-ranked team in the world, in a game Ireland couldn't lose. Sunday in Budapest is a harder ask, away from home against the group leaders with a play-off place on the line. Ireland have given themselves exactly one way to find out if this was a famous night or the start of something bigger.