Cristiano Ronaldo's fury justified as "unacceptable" incident "harmed" Portugal

Cristiano Ronaldo was less than impressed after Portugal's defeat to Serbia as he gestured angrily towards boss Fernando Santos.

The defeat in Lisbon means Portugal will have to qualify via the play-offs if they want to be present in Qatar next winter.

Aleksandar Mitrovic's last minute header meant Serbia topped the group by three points to progress automatically.

However, the landscape of the group could've been very different had Ronaldo's stoppage time winner in Serbia counted back in March.

The forward bagged a late goal which he thought had gifted Portugal a 3-2 win, only for the referees not to give it - they would later apologise.

Replays show the ball clearly crossing the line, but it was never awarded as the two nations both picked up a point which saw Ronaldo throw away his captain's armband in anger.

It was later picked up by a steward and auctioned off to assist a sick child.

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Had Ronaldo's goal counted then Portugal would've qualified as group winners, even with their loss on Sunday night.

The Manchester United star said after the incident: "I always give and will give everything for my country, that will never change.

"But there are difficult times to deal with, especially when we feel that an entire nation is being harmed.

"We will keep our heads up and face the next challenge now."

Manager Santos added: "It's unacceptable to play a World Cup qualifying match without VAR and goal-line technology."

Ronaldo's frustration was evident on Sunday night at the Estadio da Luz too.

Santos walked over to his talisman after the defeat with the 36-year-old's body language particularly telling.

The Portugal boss claimed: "He was saying that in Serbia he had scored a goal in the last minute that had not been validated.

"It's normal, I was frustrated. At the end of a game nobody will be explaining what happened or didn't happen."

UEFA clarified the reasons behind the lack of technology following Ronaldo and Portugal's frustration in Belgrade.

"The decision to use goal-line technology for the European Qualifiers lies with the host association for each match," the European governing body said.

"If the host association plans to implement goal-line technology, they must also obtain written consent from the visiting association in order for it to be used."

There was also no VAR in place to review the incident either, although they cannot intervene in those scenarios in the Premier League, but rules for other competitions are different.

"In 2019 UEFA had proposed to (world soccer governing body) FIFA the implementation of VAR in the current World Cup qualifiers," they added.

"The impact of the pandemic on operational and logistical capabilities led UEFA to delay the implementation of VAR in the Europa League group phase (to 2021-22 instead of 2020-21) as well as to withdraw the proposal to implement VAR in the 2022 European qualifiers.

"VAR was also not in use in the UEFA Nations League group stage in the autumn of 2020 and has therefore to-date never been used in UEFA national team qualifying group stage matches."