For all the bluster around the matter, it has long since passed the point where Cristiano Ronaldo making Portugal worse has been noteworthy. All that is up for debate right now is why Roberto Martinez has not made a change that so many outside Portugal have known is a necessity for years.Those within would tell you there’s no real problem here. Ruben Dias offered a firm defense of his captain ahead of Tuesday’s game against Uzbekistan, saying, “The criticism isn’t directed at just one player. “Cris is a major focus, but everyone is under scrutiny at a moment like this. I don’t think anything out of the ordinary is happening; it has been this way ever since I’ve been here, it will continue to be, so it’s nothing new.”He might be right. How appropriate it would be if a player who has at times threatened to subsume his team beneath the weight of his star power actually proved to be blocking out all sorts of issues that only manifest in his absence. The issue with that theory is that the fleeting glimpses we have had of a Ronaldo-less Portugal at major tournaments hint at an imperfect team with a very high ceiling. We have an awful lot more to go on when it comes to Portugal playing with Ronaldo. Little of it is good.
Ronaldo’s international strugglesIn the last three major tournaments, the Al-Nassr striker has one goal, a penalty scored in his country’s 2022 World Cup opener against Ghana. The 41-year-old, the second-oldest outfield player in World Cup history behind Cameroonian striker Roger Milla, has continued to boss weaker opposition in qualifiers and friendlies. His very many, very vocal supporters online would also not allow it to go unremarked that he scored in the quarterfinals, semifinals and final as Portugal won the Nations League last season, a competition whose import is only dulled somewhat by the fact I bet you can’t remember who he scored them against.In the games that really matter, though, Ronaldo is a drag on Portugal. In the 1-1 draw with DR Congo to open up the tournament, the record goalscorer in international football was simultaneously a passenger and the most important player on the pitch for his side. Of the seven shots Portugal took, three of them were by Ronaldo, accounting for 0.46 of a meagre 0.65 expected goals.That so much of his side’s shooting form was down to the No.7 is no surprise when you consider where Portugal were aiming their passes. According to Gradient Sports, Martinez’s side aimed for their teammates with 26 crosses during their World Cup opener. Exactly half of them were aimed at Ronaldo. Or at least he made it so that he was the target.
Speaking on Fox’s World Cup broadcast, Thierry Henry highlighted a particularly telling opening for the Portuguese side, midway through the second half. Nice build-up by Joao Neves and Tomas Araujo down the right release Francisco Conceicao in the penalty area, where he ought to have options to aim at. As Henry notes, Ronaldo, who has the Congolese defenders keyed on him, should move into the space highlighted below, creating room for Bruno Fernandes to step into a shot. Instead, he smells a scoring chance and flies to the same space that Fernandes is attacking, creating a mass of bodies that he has to try to whip the ball around, ultimately skewing his shot wide.
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“The team needs to score, not you,” reported Henry. “You saw the reaction of Bruno Fernandes behind…’Let it roll. Make a run, create space so I can tap it in.’ It didn’t happen.”That it didn’t happen is typical of Portugal in major tournaments. For all the talent this team has in attack and midfield, they do not score when Ronaldo starts. In the three group stage games where Ronaldo started in Qatar, two of their six goals were penalties, scrub them from the expected goals tally and you have a team barely scraping to one xG per game.
At the 2024 Euros, Ronaldo started every game. Portugal scored five goals in five games. They were a fair way down on their 8.86 xG, it should be noted, but much of that was down to Ronaldo turning 2.81 xG of his own into zero goals. Perhaps for that reason, you could construct a case for the defense that revolves around this being little more than a shooting slump. Since leaving Real Madrid, Ronaldo has not really been a plus or minus shooter. In his final five European club seasons he scored 70 non-penalty goals from 70.8 non-penalty xG. It is hard to know if he has really slumped as a finisher since moving to Saudi Arabia, perhaps you could argue that he has got used to have a half second or so more than he might at a higher level of competition, and so it’s tempting to see the guy approaching 1000 career goals and assume that if he keeps getting shots worth 0.43 non-penalty xG per 90 he is good for at least a goal other game.If not Ronaldo, then who?However, that does not account for the opportunity cost of playing Ronaldo, of where those 13 crosses against DR Congo might have gone without the aura radiating from the penalty area. The logical alternative within the squad is Goncalo Ramos, who led the line with such distinction in the 6-1 win over Switzerland in the round of 16 at the last World Cup, but struggled in the subsequent round against Morocco. In the three and a half years since the 25-year-old has won 21 caps, scoring six goals, and rounding out into a valuable squad player at European champions Paris Saint-Germain.
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Those green bars you’ll see above carry some caveating. Ramos has been getting a good chunk of minutes as a substitute for by far the most dominant side in France. That is a very helpful way of swelling your goal and xG tally. Still, he profiles as the sort of forward who suits both the international game and Portugal’s needs quite well. Fernandes, Vitinha and Conceicao don’t need help getting the ball into the box. They just need someone who will occupy defenders and get his shot, but not at the expense of others on the team.So, still that question remains of why keep Ronaldo. The underlying metrics aren’t enough to convince you the status quo might change. The alternative is absolutely fine. There are only two answers left: that Martinez is seeing something the rest of us are not, or that it is simply more hassle than it is worth to drop Ronaldo.The latter seems the most compelling. What Martinez’s predecessor Fernando Santos labelled a “tactical decision” to do without Ronaldo for the Switzerland game resulted in his striker refusing to speak to him after the tournament. In the immediate aftermath of defeat to Morocco the coach who had led Portugal to their greatest success departed.
Three and a half years later, it is no less exhausting to wade into the Ronaldo discourse, even if you don’t actually say anything. Go check the comments on Fernandes’ Instagram feed. Or check the activity of Katia Aveiro, Ronaldo’s elder sister, liking posts about the Manchester United playmaker that bemoan “too much popcorn for the national team,” while she posts stories about how “they” forgot to “pass the ball around, win the ball back [and] launch counter-attacks.”No matter what they claim, players are not unaware of what is reported about them online. You could not blame any of them for seeing what happens to those who earn the wrath of the Ronaldo fan community and subconsciously making a note to themselves. Next time they’re in the final third, make sure to get the ball to the big guy. I can wait out this tournament, they could tell themselves. He’ll retire soon enough.Ronaldo, of course, is not the architect of the Ronaldo industrial complex that has grown up around him. His primary responsibility is for his performances. While they are at current levels and no one within the Portugal camp acknowledges that fact, he will serve as an anchor on his and his country’s aspirations for a first World Cup.
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