World Cup column: Portugal show there is life beyond the implosion of a supernova
Fernando Santos’ press conference on Monday included the seemingly empty threat that captain Cristiano Ronaldo could be dropped for Portugal’s Last 16 tie against Switzerland. An angry reaction to being substituted and then told to hurry along by South Korea’s Cho Gue-Sung had upset Santos to such an extent that he dared to speak out against his captain for the first time.
Before the forward’s Manchester United return, not selecting Ronaldo when fit for either club or country bordered on the unthinkable. Throughout his resistance to the pressing and link-up play required of a forward in an elite team in the modern game, to the tantrums and the bickering, the late-night phone calls with sycophantic former talent show judges, Ronaldo always guaranteed goals. This is especially true for his country; 118 goals in 195 appearances makes him not only the highest scorer in the history of the Portugal national team but also men’s international football as a whole.
But the sands of time come sweeping in and alter the landscape for all eventually. Even if he remains a physiological marvel, the game around him has changed to such an extent that his best qualities now no longer obviously outweigh his weaknesses. Jonathan Wilson once described Ronaldo as a medieval trebuchet, capable of destruction on an unimaginable scale if guided into the right position at the right time, with others required to make sacrifices for him to function. But the weapon is now too weighty to be efficient in battle, requiring too much of those around him in relation to what he is giving, complaining that the facilities at basecamp are the same under Henry VIII as they were under Henry VII.
The timeline of his Old Trafford comeback neatly summarises the evolution within the game that has taken place with Ronaldo as a spectator, standing forty yards from the action waving his arms in disgust at everything not going his way. The goals still flowed but the team got worse. A manager with a modern, clearly defined way of playing arrived and Ronaldo was sidelined. His ego could not adjust to the team being better off without him and his contract was terminated.
With Portugal, and with Santos in particular, it never truly felt as though Ronaldo’s day of reckoning would come. Given his international record and the role he played in winning the European Championship in 2016, the Portugal manager has seemed as enamoured as anyone by Ronaldo despite his flaws. The last Euros seemed to showcase the tensions between remaining loyal to his man and trying to find an effective system to utilise an incredibly talented collection of players. Portugal scraped through their group before falling to the ruins of Belgium’s golden generation in the Last 16.
Maybe all Santos needed was the right opportunity. Erik ten Hag effectively set a trap for Ronaldo at the start of this season by involving him just enough to keep the Manchester United sponsorship machine content but not quite enough to satisfy Ronaldo’s own sense of self-importance, and it ultimately resulted in an embarrassing interview with an embarrassing interviewer that resulted in an embarrassing redundancy. And Ronaldo acting out after being substituted in a dead rubber of a game against South Korea was the moment for his international manager to act.
Even though all Santos had done in his pre-match press conference was refuse to confirm Ronaldo would play, even by turning down an opportunity to confirm the five-time Balon D’or winner’s starting place, and by proxy his importance to the team, his greatness and his legend, he was taking his boldest step away from his captain. The news that he would in fact not start at the Lusail Stadium was still difficult to fully comprehend.
The headline from the 6-1 thumping of Switzerland is of course the hat-trick for Ronaldo’s direct replacement Goncalo Ramos. The Benfica striker has a match ball by which to remember the occasion, but it was his harrying out of possession, his hustle and bustle, and his willingness to combine with team-mates that put him most at odds with what we have seen from Ronaldo over the past few years.
It was not only Ramos who thrived in Ronaldo’s absence though. Bruno Fernandes and Bernardo Silva have been two of the most influential players at this World Cup so far. Silva’s more measured, laidback approach to picking apart opposition defenders by taking at least one glorious touch more than necessary has matched up well with Fernandes’ all-action, high-octane, grenade-like treatment of a football to make Portugal one of the competition’s more watchable teams.
Ronaldo acted as something of a luxurious ornament by comparison in the wins against Ghana and Uruguay, claiming goals that were not his and scoring penalties that should not have been. Although he did not look as counterproductive to the efforts of his team in those games as he has in the recent past, both Silva and Fernandes reached another level against the Swiss. Shoulders broader without the threat of a tantrum should a pass be misplaced, and greater freedom provided by not having to account for Ronaldo’s lack of influence without the ball, they look a combination that could win this tournament in this system with a focal point like Ramos.
Rafael Leao even seems a more natural fit for how Santos wants this team to operate and has undoubtedly had more of an impact on this tournament than Ronaldo. A disallowed goal for offside not long after the free agent forward had been brought on could even be understood as the Portuguese captain no longer being quite in sync with those around him.
The reaction of the crowd to Ronaldo’s 73rd-minute introduction from the substitutes’ bench was evidence in itself that neither he nor his army of well-adjusted super fans are likely to allow his career to wind down gracefully. Should a genuine chasm of division grow from this justified snub, Santos’ will surely have the weight of history on his side should he win the trophy in ten days’ time.
