Portugal vs. France, Euro 2016 final: Live coverage and score updates

Cristiano Ronaldo is, unquestionably, one of the world’s best players. On pure talent, he’s Portugal’s best and most important player by far. But in Euro 2016, one factor trumped all that talent: Ronaldo’s leadership.

It’s not something that’s often been talked about over the years. At Manchester United he was too young and on a team too full of veterans to be a leader. Real Madrid has often been a team more about overwhelming with talent at every position, so leadership takes a back seat to everything else.

Cristiano Ronaldo, man of the people with impeccable abdominals, left the championship game of the Euro 2016 early with an injury, but that didn’t stop him from making an impact on the game. As Portugal and France headed to extra time, Ronaldo valiantly walked back from the tunnel to support his team.

And when Eder delivered the game-winning goal, Ronaldo started bawling which made for some great photos. From the goal to the celebration itself, we witnessed #peak Ronaldo:

Even some Portugal fans didn’t expect the national team to defeat France in the Euro 2016 Final. And when that moment finally came, the players themselves didn’t know how to react.

And this isn’t about how the players react in terms of etiquette and poise; their bodies —at least Pepe’s — didn’t know what to do. So he puked.

Neither home field advantage for France nor an early injury to Cristiano Ronaldo were enough to hold Portugal back, and they emerged from the Euro 2016 final triumphant, 1-0 winners in extra time over France. Thanks to Eder’s goal in the second half of extra time, Portugal are the champions of Europe, and France are left asking themselves what went wrong.

It was clear very early in the match that it would be played with high energy, with France screaming forward chasing an early goal and Portugal flowing all over the pitch trying to blunt that attack and launch counters of their own. The quality of the play on the field was a little shaky in the opening minutes, but as things started to settle down you could see just how hard both teams were willing to fight to be the ones celebrating at the end of the night.

Olivier Giroud is playing in the Euro 2016 final and HE KNOWS IT.

Poor Patrice Evra was probably hoping to play Sunday too, but Giroud might accidentally kill him before he has a chance to get on the field. Look at everyone else just jumping up and taking it easy while Giroud puts all six-foot-fourteen-inch-three-hundred-seventy pounds of his shoulder into little old Patrice.