By Chris O'Brien
June 12 2006

Cristiano Ronaldo, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Edwin Van der Sar were all in action on the third day of the World Cup finals. The Netherlands, Mexico and the Portugease all overcame potential banana skins to get their respective campaigns off to winning start.

Ruud van Nistelrooy and Edwin Van der Sar were both in action as the Netherlands scraped a 1-0 win over a hard-working Serbia & Montenegro. Arjen Robben netted the only goal of the game on 18 minutes as the Dutch dominated the first-half proceedings, but failed to fully capitalist on their superiority.

Serbia & Montenegro, who were missing Nemanja Vidic through suspension, found their feet after the interval and began to put the men in orange under serious pressure. Nikola Zigic, the towering centre-forward, replaced Savo Milosevic at the interval and posed an awkward threat up front, but Marco van Basten's men held on to secure a vital three points that really boosts their chances of professing from the 'Group of Death'.

Meanwhile, Mexico lived up to their bill as tournament 'dark horses', securing a 3-1 win over Iran. The South Americans left it late with a superbly-worked strike from Omar Blanco and Antonio Zinha's effort both coming within the last quarter-of-an-hour. Omar Bravo had given Mexico a 28th minute lead, but an unlikely result looked on the cards when Yahya Golmohammadi restored parity eight minutes later. However, Mexico battled back to for a crucial opening win.

Portugal now look favourites to qualify from 'Group D' along with Mexico as they avoided a slip-up against Angola. The press focussed firmly on the angle that Angola was once colonised by the Portuguese, prompting obvious 'David & Goliath' tags for the game. The favourites started superbly, Pedro Pauleta slotting home the opener after four minutes, but they failed to capitalise and faced some nervous moments, particularly after the interval. United's Cristiano Ronaldo was booked and then looked furious to be substituted after an hour.