Cristiano Ronaldo set for record 6th World Cup, Italy in danger again and Ireland make playoffs

Cristiano Ronaldo is heading to another World Cup. Erling Haaland is going to his first. Italy risks missing out on sport's biggest global event for the third straight edition.

Portugal sealed its place at next year's tournament in the United States, Canada and Mexico with a 9-1 rout of Armenia on Sunday.

Haaland scored twice as Norway confirmed qualification with a 4-1 win against four-time world champion Italy, which was consigned to the playoffs.

Ireland is also in the playoffs after a stunning late comeback to beat Hungary 3-2, while England ended its qualifying campaign with a 100% record by beating Albania 2-0.

Without the suspended Ronaldo, Portugal ensured the soccer great would have the chance to appear at a record sixth World Cup.

The five-time Ballon d'Or winner will be 41 by the time the tournament kicks off next June and Ronaldo recently said it would be his last shot at winning the one major title to elude him. Assuming he retains his fitness, he is expected to be part of coach Roberto Martinez's squad, though he may yet be suspended for as many as two matches after being sent off in Portugal's 2-0 loss to Ireland on Thursday.

That surprise defeat meant Portugal had to beat Armenia to be certain of top place in Group F and hat tricks from Bruno Fernandes and Joao Neves ensured there would be no slipup.

“Today we saw our team back to its best: committed, supportive and executing the game plan excellently,” Martinez told broadcaster RTP.

Ronaldo and his great rival Lionel Messi will both appear at their sixth World Cup if they take part in next year’s tournament.

They will surpass greats like Germany's Lothar Mattheus, who appeared in five.

Defending champion Argentina has already secured its place.

Messi fulfilled his career-long ambition by leading Argentina to the title in Qatar in 2022.

Ronaldo, who has won the European Championship and two Nations League titles with Portugal, is still to add a World Cup to a trophy haul that includes five Champions Leagues and league titles in England, Spain and Italy.

Though he is nearing the end of his career and has left top-flight European soccer behind to play in Saudi Arabia, he has continued to further embellish his remarkable career.

He led Portugal to the Nations League earlier this year and last month became the leading scorer in World Cup qualifying games with 41 goals.

Suspension denied him the chance to add to that tally Sunday, but there was no shortage of goals from Portugal in his absence.

Fernandes' hat trick included two penalties. Neves struck twice in the first half and completed his treble with a goal in the 81st.

Having missed out on the 2018 and 2022 editions of the World Cup, Italy's place is in doubt again.

Only victory by nine goals or more would have been enough to see the Italians overtake Norway at the top of Group I.

That was never likely against a Norway team that had a perfect record in qualifying going into Sunday's game in Milan and ended its campaign in style.

Despite going behind to Francesco Pio Esposito's early goal, four goals in the second half — Haaland scored in the 78th and 79th — turned the game around for Norway.

Now Italy faces the 16-team UEFA playoffs, which will determine the last four European nations to advance to the World Cup.

An unforgettable week for Ireland was capped off with a dramatic fightback in Hungary.

Troy Parrott scored a hat trick — including a winner in the sixth minute of added time — to send Ireland to the playoffs in second place in Group F.

Parrott struck both goals in the 2-0 win over Portugal and with Ireland trailing 2-1 going into the 80th minute at the Puskas Arena, he proved his country's hero again.

First, he lifted the ball over Hungary goalkeeper Denes Dibusz to level the match at 2-2 and with the clock running down, he converted from close range for the winner deep into added time.

England ended its qualifying campaign with a 100% record by beating second-placed Albania 2-0. Thomas Tuchel's team won its eight games in Group K and didn't concede a single goal.

England star Jude Bellingham appeared unhappy at being substituted in the closing stages of the match. Tuchel said Bellingham had “to accept it, respect it, and keep on going.”

The Three Lions' all-time leading scorer Harry Kane got both goals Sunday to extend his record to 78. The Bayern Munich forward struck twice in eight minutes in the second half to break Albania's resistance.

Victory ended Thomas Tuchel's first qualifying campaign as coach in perfect style after the German was hired to lead England at the World Cup, with the challenge of ending its decades-long wait for a major trophy.

Ukraine finished second in Group D and is through to the playoffs after beating Iceland 2-0.

Group winner France beat Azerbaijan 3-1, having gone behind after four minutes to Renat Dadashov's opener.

James Robson is at https://x.com/jamesalanrobson

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

England's Jude Bellingham reacts during the World Cup 2026 group K qualifying soccer match between Albania and England, in Tirana, Albania, Sunday, Nov. 16, 2025.(AP Photo/Vlasov Sulaj)

Norway's Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring his side's third goal during the 2026 World Cup Group I qualifier soccer match between Italy and Norway in Milan, Italy, Sunday, Nov. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Italy's head coach Gennaro Gattuso walks under the rain before the start of the 2026 World Cup Group I qualifier soccer match between Italy and Norway in Milan, Italy, Sunday, Nov. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo speaks during a press conference in Dublin, Ireland, Wednesday Nov. 12, 2025, ahead of Thursday's World Cup qualifying soccer match against Ireland. (Brian Lawless/PA via AP)

England's Harry Kane, center, scores his side's second goal as Albania's Naser Aliji, left, and Berat Djimsiti try to stop him during the World Cup 2026 group K qualifying soccer match between Albania and England, in Tirana, Albania, Sunday, Nov. 16, 2025.(AP Photo/Vlasov Sulaj)

Ireland players celebrates after Ireland's Troy Parrott scored his side's third goal during the World Cup 2026 group F qualifying soccer match between Hungary and Ireland in Budapest, Hungary, Sunday, Nov. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Denes Erdos)

Ireland's Troy Parrott, right, celebrates after scoring his side's third goal during the World Cup 2026 group F qualifying soccer match between Hungary and Ireland in Budapest, Hungary, Sunday, Nov. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Denes Erdos)

Portugal's Joao Neves celebrates after scoring his side's fourth goal during a World Cup 2026 group F qualifying soccer match between Portugal and Armenia in Porto, Portugal, Sunday, Nov. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Luis Vieira)

Portugal's Bruno Fernandes scores his side's seventh goal from the penalty spot during a World Cup 2026 group F qualifying soccer match between Portugal and Armenia in Porto, Portugal, Sunday, Nov. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Luis Vieira)

A fan on the stands wears a scarf with a picture of Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo before a World Cup 2026 group F qualifying soccer match between Portugal and Armenia in Porto, Portugal, Sunday, Nov. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Luis Vieira)

Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo leaves the pitch after being shown a red card during a World Cup 2026 group F qualifying soccer match between Ireland and Portugal in Dublin, Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is taking up one of the term’s most consequential cases, President Donald Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship declaring that children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens, and he arrived at the court Wednesday to attend the arguments.

The justices will hear Trump’s appeal of a lower-court ruling from New Hampshire that struck down the citizenship restrictions, one of several courts that have blocked them. They have not taken effect anywhere in the country.

A definitive ruling is expected by early summer.

Trump will be the first sitting president to attend oral arguments at the nation’s highest court.

Crowds watched from the sidewalks as Trump’s motorcade drove along Constitution and Independence Avenues, passing the Washington Monument and the National Mall on the way to the court building.

The case frames another test of Trump's assertions of executive power that defy long-standing precedent for a court that has largely ruled in the president's favor — but with some notable exceptions that Trump has responded to with starkly personal criticisms of the justices.

The birthright citizenship order, which Trump signed the first day of his second term, is part of his Republican administration’s broad immigration crackdown.

Birthright citizenship is the first Trump immigration-related policy to reach the court for a final ruling. The justices previously struck down global tariffs Trump had imposed under an emergency powers law that had never been used that way.

Trump reacted furiously to the late February tariffs decision, saying he was ashamed of the justices who ruled against him and calling them unpatriotic.

He issued a preemptive broadside against the court on Sunday on his Truth Social platform. “Birthright Citizenship is not about rich people from China, and the rest of the World, who want their children, and hundreds of thousands more, FOR PAY, to ridiculously become citizens of the United States of America. It is about the BABIES OF SLAVES!,” the president wrote. “Dumb Judges and Justices will not a great Country make!”

Trump's order would upend the long-standing view that the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, and federal law since 1940 confer citizenship on everyone born on American soil, with narrow exceptions for the children of foreign diplomats and those born to a foreign occupying force.

The 14th Amendment was intended to ensure that Black people, including former slaves, had citizenship, though the Citizenship Clause is written more broadly. “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,” it reads.

In a series of decisions, lower courts have struck down the executive order as illegal, or likely so, under the Constitution and federal law. The decisions have invoked the high court's 1898 ruling in Wong Kim Ark, which held that the U.S.-born child of Chinese nationals was a citizen.

The Trump administration argues that the common view of citizenship is wrong, asserting that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore are not entitled to citizenship.

The court should use the case to set straight “long-enduring misconceptions about the Constitution’s meaning,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote.

No court has accepted that argument, and lawyers for pregnant women whose children would be affected by the order said the Supreme Court should not be the first to do so.

“We have the president of the United States trying to radically reinterpret the definition of American citizenship,” said Cecillia Wang, the American Civil Liberties Union legal director who is facing off against Sauer at the Supreme Court.

More than one-quarter of a million babies born in the U.S. each year would be affected by the executive order, according to research by the Migration Policy Institute and Pennsylvania State University’s Population Research Institute.

While Trump has largely focused on illegal immigration in his rhetoric and actions, the birthright restrictions also would apply to people who are legally in the United States, including students and applicants for green cards, or permanent resident status.

Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

Demonstrators holding opposing views verbally engage ahead of President Donald Trump's arrival at the U.S. Supreme Court, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)

President Donald Trump's limo exits the White House en route to the Supreme Court, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

President Donald Trump's motorcade arrives at the U.S. Supreme Court, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)

Pro and anti-Trump demonstrators rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court, before justices hear oral arguments on whether President Donald Trump can deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

People arrive to walk inside the U.S. Supreme Court, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. The Supreme Court justices will hear oral arguments today on whether President Donald Trump can deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

People arrive to walk inside the U.S. Supreme Court, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. The Supreme Court justices will hear oral arguments today on whether President Donald Trump can deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

President Donald Trump answers questions from reporters after signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House Tuesday, March 31, 2026, in Washington, as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick listens. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

The U.S. Supreme Court is seen as the moon rises Tuesday, March 31, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)