He had us all fooled. Clean through on goal, with the opportunity to break his tournament duck, Cristiano Ronaldo caused stars to fall out of the sky as he squared for Bruno Fernandes to put Portugal 3-0 up against Turkey in Group F.
His former Manchester United teammate looked equally perplexed, hugging his country’s all-time top goalscorer especially tight, just to check it was really him.
Such a move was in-keeping with Ronaldo 4.0, who had this writer similarly convinced his latest incarnation was that of a team player, 39 years in the making.
In both of Portugal’s opening two group games, Ronaldo seemed fully aware that he no longer needed act like the alpha in such a multifaceted group. There were no tantrums, applause for teammates attempts to pick him out rather than death stares.
But we should all have known better. All it was going to take was one flashpoint to unleash those inner demons bursting to get out. And after his booking for dissent on the half-hour mark in the defeat to Georgia, Ronaldo plunged to new lows.
A water bottle got the brunt of his frustration as he was substituted, before he sat on the bench head in hands trying to quash the anger, having spent the rest of his time on the pitch in Gelsenkirchen gesticulating so much his limbs looked to be becoming detached from his body.
This wasn’t the Champions League final but a group game that had no bearing on Portugal’s progress to the last-16. The petulant Ronaldo of old, one damaging to those teammates around him, was back and more cantankerous than ever.
What makes Ronaldo getting up to his old tricks especially harmful is this is one of the greatest-ever Portuguese squads in history, one with more than enough quality in the ranks to bring the Iberian nation its second European Championship crown.
When Ronaldo was busy throwing toys out of the pram at every given opportunity in previous years, such frustration bore from the fact he was having to shoulder much of the goalscoring burden himself, and on the rare occasion when he didn’t fire, neither did Portugal.
With Liverpool’s Diogo Jota on one side of him in attack in Germany and AC Milan’s Rafael Leao, arguably Serie A’s brightest star, on the other, as well as one of the Premier League’s best creators, Fernandes, behind, Ronaldo had a role to play like any other central striker in any other team – a vital cog in the Portuguese attacking juggernaut. He seemed more than at home fulfilling such a requirement, too.
Those demons, however, were harder to suppress than we thought. Portugal coach Roberto Martinez will be more concerned than any going into Monday’s last-16 clash with Slovenia, as he is in danger of flattering to deceive with his second successive “golden generation”.
The Belgium you have seen limp through the group stages is one at the end of its cycle. There is young talent coming through, but not in great enough a number to replace their best-ever crop of elite superstars.
Martinez, however, had Kevin De Bruyne, Romelu Lukaku, Vincent Kompany and Eden Hazard, among others, at the peak of their powers, a group who produced one of the most blistering World Cup displays in recent memory to defeat Brazil at the quarter-final stage in 2018, but the Catalan could not quite inspire them to a maiden major tournament crown.
The former Wigan and Everton boss has won widespread acclaim with how he reintegrated Ronaldo into the group after it appeared he was beyond the goalscoring phenomenon, following a dreadful 2022 World Cup and his move to Saudi Arabia.
There was no pandering to the ego. Ronaldo fit into Martinez’s system, no questions asked and a comfortable, tantrum-free Euro 2024 qualification campaign ensued.
Old habits die hard though. Now Martinez has a situation he must meet head on. How ever many selfie-hunters he may alienate, dropping Ronaldo has to be considered, given the myriad of attacking options available.
Few coaches have had the chutzpah to do that and Martinez is unlikely to buck the trend, but he has to do something to stop Ronaldo dragging this star-studded Portugal team down with him.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/HeXTvg7
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