Following his brace in the 2-1 win over Egypt last week, Portugal captain Cristiano Ronaldo needed a hat-trick against the Netherlands on Monday night to make history.

The 33-year-old currently sits on 81 goals for his country - just three short of Hungary legend Ferenc Puskas' record of 84 as Europe's all-time leading international goalscorer.

But Ronaldo didn't even come close to closing the gap on Puskas in Geneva, Switzerland, as he and his teammates slumped to a disappointing 3-0 defeat.

Goals from Memphis Depay, Ryan Babel and Virgil van Dijk before the break did the damage, while Joao Cancelo was shown a red card on the hour mark for 10-man Portugal.

Safe to say Fernando Santos' side will need to be much better defensively when the World Cup starts in June if they're to have any chance of progressing far in the tournament.

It was an eventful night for Ronaldo nonetheless with the Real Madrid man involved in a controversial penalty incident and greeted on the pitch by a few of his fans.

In the 30th minute, Ronaldo dribbled into a crowded box and went down looking for penalty, but the referee was having none of it and waved play on.

FANS ACCUSE RONALDO OF DIVING

Replays showed the winger actually kicked the ground to suggest he had dived.

That was the verdict given by football fans anyway, with Ronaldo labelled as "embarrassing" on social media.

However, new footage has emerged that appears to explain why Ronaldo went to ground so theatrically and that he did NOT dive.

In the video below, Ronaldo kicks the ground with his left foot, which puts him off balance, and then gets his right foot caught between an opponent's legs.

It's by no means a penalty, let's make that very clear, but from the Portuguese's perspective he probably felt there was contact from behind. Check it out.

Ronaldo's saving grace here is that his right foot connects with an opponent's knee, which would have made him even more unbalanced and made it harder to stay up.

But it still wasn't a penalty - sorry, Cristiano.