Nations League: Silva lifts Portugal past Italy

Serbia and Romania play out a draw

The winner: Andre Silva, right, scored in the second half to seal the issue in Portugal’s favour.

Andre Silva scored the only goal as European champion Portugal — without superstar Cristiano Ronaldo — got its Nations League football campaign off the mark with a 1-0 win over Italy here on Monday.

Ronaldo had been left out of the squad at his own request to focus on his new Italian club Juventus.

Domination

But the Euro 2016 winner showed no sign of missing its star striker, dominating the Italians to secure its first three points in Group 3 that also includes Poland.

Meanwhile, Serbia and Romania played out a 2-2 draw in a Group C4 match.

The results:

League A, Group 3:

At Lisbon: Portugal 1 (Silva 48) bt Italy 0.

League B, Group 2:

At Stockholm: Sweden 2 (Thelin 35, Claesson 49) lost to Turkey 3 (Calhanoglu 51, Akbaba 88, 90+2).

League C, Group 1:

At Glasgow: Scotland 2 (Xhimshiti 47-og, Naismith 68) bt Albania 0.

Group 4: At Belgrade: Serbia 2 (Mitrovic 26, 63) drew with Romania 2 (Stanciu 48-pen, Tucudean 68).

At Podgorica: Montenegro 2 (Savic 34-pen, Jankovic 36) bt Lithuania 0.

League D, Group 1: At Andorra la Vella: Andorra 1 (Alaez 86) drew with Kazakhstan 1 (Logvinenko 68).

Group 3: At Ta'Qali: Malta 1 (Agius 10-pen) drew with Azerbaijan 1 (Khalilzade 26).

At Pristina: Kosovo 2 (Zeneli 50, Nuhiu 55) bt Faroe Islands 0.