It certainly wasn't the way Modric would have wanted to bow out of his final World Cup game.

I think the rest of the footballing world also agree...

Ronaldo may have been dissapointed not to play the full 90 minutes, but one man who doesn't need many minutes to make an impact is Portugal's Goncalo Ramos.

He has scored four goals in his 187 minutes played at the World Cup.

The only other player to have less than 200 minutes played and at least four goals in World Cup history is Poland’s Ernst Wilimowski.

Image source, Getty Images

The goal he was desperate for eventually came in the 68th minute...

Jude Winter

Thanks, Joe.

I'm sure you won't have a sulk over the switch like Cristiano did last night.

Before he came off, he did get that first World Cup knockout goal.

However, his pretty tidy finish from an over the top pass was ruled out for offside.

Let's have a look at that moment again now...

Joe Rindl
BBC Sport

Cristiano Ronaldo was substituted in the 81st minute and Portugal scored their winner 13 minutes later.

We're going to do that now. I'm off, replaced by Jude. Impact journalist.

The win over Croatia was Ronaldo's ninth World Cup knockout-stage game, but the first time he has scored in one, with his goal coming from his 31st shot in such matches.

He did it on limited work in the opposition penalty area.

Ronaldo has scored three times at this edition, while all other players who were at least 40 years old have combined for one goal in the competition’s history (Roger Milla).

His penalty was his only touch inside the opposition box in his 81 minutes spent on the pitch.

BBC 5 Live Breakfast

Duarte Carreira, a Portuguese journalist speaks to BBC Radio 5 Live Breakfast: "I would say that the first 10 minutes were really good. Portugal had that Bruno Fernandes opportunity. I think it was the only shot during the first half for Portugal that was kind of meaningful.

"As to the first quarter-end, it was not that great, but the second half, for sure, delivered one of the one-time greats for us Portuguese, and it was good, although contentious a bit.

"I think that the best thing about the whole conversation about Ronaldo and that he shouldn't be playing that big of a role within the Portuguese team kind of plays in his favour went on the pitch for these moments.

"Jokingly, people call him "Penaldo" for a reason when they want to detract him because he scores penalties. He is really good at that.

"To be honest, I'm a Ronaldo critic at times, especially over the last few years, but yesterday it was pivotal because he delivered and he was substituted and it worked out. It worked out really, really well."

"I saw the visuals of the seismographs within the football and thought this could be big. It changes the spirit of the game a bit. Of course, I'm a huge NFL fan and I know a thing or two about technology and the rules etc. within the game but we're not used to see this in football, right?"

FIFA

FIFA explained the decision in a post on X which read: “According to the data provided by Connected Ball Technology housed within the official match ball, it was proven that contact was made by Croatia’s #20 Igor Matanovic in the build up to the goal against Portugal, allowing the referee to correctly determine offside and disallow the goal.

“IMU sensors housed within the Trionda ball are capable of determining any slight contact, displayed to viewers in the broadcast as a ‘heartbeat graphic’, and allowing officials an unprecedented level of data to make fast, accurate decisions.”

Last night was the first match in World Cup history to feature three different players who have appeared in more than 20 World Cup matches.

The match was Cristiano Ronaldo’s 26th World Cup appearance while it was number 23 for Luka Modric and 21 for Ivan Perisic.

Image source, Getty Images

Neil Johnston
BBC Sport journalist at Toronto Stadium

Ronaldo has never won the World Cup and on a rollercoaster night of emotions in Toronto, must have thought his dream of lifting the famous trophy was about to end when Ivan Perisic put Croatia ahead after a disappointing first half.

Portugal's captain then had a sublime equaliser ruled out by a tight offside call before making it 1-1 from the penalty spot - the first goal he has scored in the knockout stages of the World Cup in what is his sixth tournament.

Ronaldo then looked gutted as he was substituted in the 81st minute of his 26th match at a World Cup.

But that did not stop him running on to the pitch to celebrate when Goncalo Ramos put Portugal 2-1 ahead in the 94th minute before Croatia's disallowed goal.

Ronaldo had played every minute of Portugal's campaign at this World Cup before this game - but now there will be more questions as to whether he should continue to start.

Former England player Theo Walcott, speaking to BBC Sport, said it was the right decision in the end to take Ronaldo off.

"Cristiano Ronaldo had his moment and we had this debate, thinking about taking him off just before he had the offside goal and I was like 'you can't take him off'," Walcott said.

"I think it was the right decision in the end, it really was."

BBC 5 Live Breakfast

Eric Goff professor in sports engineering at Purdue University, spoke to BBC Radio 5 Live breakfast to explain how microscopic technology in the football led to the Croatia goal being ruled out: "So, the way it works is, there's what is called an inertial measurement unit, an IMU. It's only a few grammes, but it's embedded in one of the four panels. And to keep the mass from being offset, like the centre mass of the ball, from being somewhere other than centre of the ball, you get these counterbalancing masses in the other panels.

"So, what that does is it allows for data to be collected from the ball at 500 hertz or 500 times a second. And what that means is as soon as boot meets ball, let's say, there's a two millisecond window for a time stamp. There are also a dozen cameras above the stadium recording the 22 players on the pitch, 50 times a second. And they will be able to actually pinpoint within two milliseconds where those players were on the pitch when the boot met the ball.

"What happened in Croatia was the ball was apparently in contact with the Croatian player and a slight change in the ball had been picked up outside of this narrow two millisecond window. What I would love for, and it would sure make the Croatian fans much happier, is to release the data for that ball at that moment to show the spike in the acceleration - albeit a small one when it made contact with that player."

Speaking of technology in sport, here's a great, short-ish podcast from the World Service team:

There were other VAR interventions last night.

Cristiano Ronaldo thought his fantastic touch and finish get Portugal level before it was ruled out for offside...