Not in his “wildest dreams” did Goncalo Ramos think he would be in the starting XI for Portugal’s national team, that too in a World Cup game and standing in for, of all people, Cristiano Ronaldo.

And here he is, all of 21, not too well-known outside Lisbon, where he has been making a name as a striker for Benfica, the owner of a hattrick in a World Cup knockout game, suddenly the toast of the football world. Ramos became the first player to score a hat-trick on their first World Cup start since Miroslav Klose in 2002.

Ramos had never played for Portugal before being selected in the World Cup squad last month. He was given the No. 26 shirt in the 26-man squad and played for only a few minutes as a late substitute in Portugal’s group wins over Ghana and Uruguay. He had zero attempts on goal in those games.

“Most people in the world had never heard about him until today,” Portugal midfielder Bruno Fernandes acknowledged after the 6-1 romp over Switzerland here on Tuesday.

Ramos made headlines even before kick-off, picked by coach Fernando Santos to lead the attack in place of Ronaldo.

“I think not even in my wildest dreams I thought about being in the starting 11 for the knockout phase,” Ramos said, smiling.

Asked if Ronaldo spoke to him before the game, Ramos said: “Honestly, in our team, no one talked about it. Cristiano as our captain, as he always did, he helped us, he gave encouragement to us, not only to myself, but our teammates.”

Ramos linked easily with a group of teammates he has barely played with, ghosting in at the near post to poke the ball in from close range for his second goal, and the team’s third, soon after halftime.

“Gonçalo is more dynamic,” Santos said through a translator after the game.“Cristiano currently is a player who is more fixed and plays in a more determined area.”

But though the wider world may not have heard of him before Tuesday, Benfica and their supporters have been witness to his prodigious talent.

Ramos, who considers Robert Lewandowski, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and, of course, Cristiano among his role models, had joined Benfica’s fabled youth academy at the age of 13. In 2019, he got a call-up to the Portugal junior team that finished runners-up in the Under-19 European Championships. And a year later, he was considered good enough for a Benfica first-team berth and scored twice on debut in July 2020.

This season, he has already scored nine goals in the Portuguese Primeira Liga, and a further five in Europe. The youngster has flourished under Benfica’s new managerRoger Schmidt and has been playing as the club’s main striker in a 4-2-3-1 system. If Portugal has worries about life after Ronaldo they needn’t. They have a wizard in their midst.

Written with inputs from Reuters