Denmark’s striker Rasmus Højlund said he wasn’t trying to mock ‘idol’ Ronaldo with ‘Siu’ celebration. The Dane scored in the 78th minute in the first-leg of the quarterfinal clash of the Nations League and then copied Ronaldo’s Siu celebration on Thursday.

The forward said he has always idolized Ronaldo and had no intentions of mocking the Portuguese legend.

“It’s for my idol,” Højlund told Danish broadcaster TV2 after the game. “It wasn’t to mock him or anything. He’s had such a huge impact on me and my football career. Maybe it’s a bit ambivalent, but to score against him and Portugal, it’s huge.

“I remember him scoring from a free kick in 2011 when I went to watch the match, and since then I’ve been a huge Cristiano fan.”

Rasmus had said in an old interview as quoted by renowned football journalist, Fabrizio Romano on X, “Cristiano is everything to me. I fell in love with football because of Cristiano, I became a Manchester United fan because of Cristiano, I started self-training because of Cristiano, I started doing push-ups and sit-ups every day before I went to bed, because of Cristiano, because I wanted to be Cristiano”.

Meanwhile, earlier in the match, Christian Eriksen had a golden opportunity to put Denmark in front but Portugal’s goalkeeper Diogo Costa made the penalty save while diving to his right in the 24th minute.

On the other hand, Ronaldo extended his record of the number of international appearances to 218 but could not find the back of the net for the national team.

The second leg between Portugal and Denmark will be played on Sunday at the Estádio José Alvalade.