Ronaldo gets to grips with tourney jinx

The world's two pre-eminent players score goals with jaw-dropping regularity at club level, but both have been castigated for their failure to reproduce their domestic form in the international arena.

However, having struggled to escape from Messi's shadow during the 2011-12 season, despite the fact his Real Madrid side pipped Messi's Barcelona to the La Liga crown, Ronaldo is stealing a march at Euro 2012.

So often accused of failing to spark for his country at major tournaments, Ronaldo is putting the record straight after a pair of scintillating performances against the Netherlands and the Czech Republic.

In both games he was the man of the match by such an obvious margin that it was a wonder the stadium announcers in Kharkiv and Warsaw even found it necessary to broadcast the news to the crowd.

An insistent, incorrigible attacking presence on the Portuguese left, Ronaldo bent both games to his will to leave his country facing a semi-final showdown on Wednesday against neighbors and reigning European champions Spain.

Over the course of the two games, he scored three goals, hit the post four times, and seemed to carry a threat from anywhere within 40 yards of the opposition goal.

He now stands level with Germany's Mario Gomez as the joint-top scorer still in the tournament, while just two games separate him and his colleagues from the greatest triumph in the history of the Portuguese national team.

A member of the side shocked by Greece in the Euro 2004 final, the 19-year-old Ronaldo's tears expressed the heartbreak of a disbelieving host nation.

Eight years later, that cruel July day at Lisbon's Estadio da Luz remains the closest Ronaldo has come to winning a major honor with his country.

Scorned at the 2006 World Cup for his role in the dismissal of Manchester United team-mate Wayne Rooney during the quarter-final win over England, he saw Portugal fall to France in the last four.

He plundered eight goals in qualifying for Euro 2008 but scored just once in the final tournament as Portugal lost to Germany in the quarterfinals, while the 2010 World Cup told a similar story.

One year on from his record-breaking 94 million euros (US$131.6m) transfer to Madrid, he was tipped to dominate in South Africa but again scored only once, in a 7-0 drubbing of North Korea, before Portugal lost to Spain in the last 16.

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