Cristiano Ronaldo: Is the Portuguese star inseparable at Euro 2024?

Ronaldo has been Portugal’s star player for the past two decades, winning trophies and changing the perception of a team known domestically for its losing mentality, but he has yet to score in this tournament.

Despite this, according to a poll by the website Mais Futebol, he can still count on the support of his compatriots: 54% of them want him to start in Friday’s quarter-final against France.

Even his slump in Frankfurt did not dent their confidence.

“If there is anything to take from this, it is the deep humanity of the moment. There is a street kid authenticity in Ronaldo,” said Henrique Raposo, a columnist for the newspaper Expresso.

“If you follow his career, you know that he has always cried out of joy or frustration, without fear of publicity. That makes him an unparalleled media star.”

Bernardo Ribeiro, director of the newspaper Record, added: “I don’t know what made Ronaldo cry – whether it was seeing his mother cry, whether it was letting his country down or whether it was letting himself down.

“Whatever the reason, they are all understandable, because even the most selfish of them shows us what we have known for years. For better or for worse, he is a competitive animal.”

Despite local sympathy for his tears, there is a feeling that such a mentality no longer serves the team as well as it once did.

Ronaldo’s performance against Slovenia certainly didn’t do him any favours. He had 20 shots on target, the most of any player in the competition. Yet he still failed to score despite appearing in every game so far.

Taking a free-kick from the left flank only added to the impression that he was putting on a show of his own in an attempt to become the oldest goalscorer and the first player to score in six different editions of the European Championship.

“Six, seven years ago, Ronaldo could have easily scored a hat-trick in this match. But he no longer has the same jumping capacity, the explosion, the balance to shoot quickly and the dribble. So all these situations show his mental side in moments of frustration,” argued Luis Cristovao, a pundit for SIC Noticias.

“This is the first time he plays in a major competition, while he plays in a much less competitive context (Saudi Arabia) than in Germany.”

Coach Roberto Martinez has now been in charge for 18 months – or 20 games – and he too has been criticised for the way he has handled the situation.

“He must stop behaving like a diplomat with a rainbow in his eyes,” said Tomas da Cunha, a pundit for DAZN, TSF Radio and the podcast No Principio Era A Bola.

“Ronaldo has started all the games and the team obviously expects him in the finishing zone, but physically he is no longer the same and you can also see that if he cannot make a difference, it affects him psychologically.

“It would be the coach’s job to let other players play. Where else would you see a 39-year-old play four games in two weeks in a July competition? Or 120 minutes in a round of 16? Nowhere else.”

The mood in Portugal ahead of the match against France is so strong that the Portuguese newspaper A Bola has nicknamed the team the ‘Association in Support of Cristiano Ronaldo’.

Sacking Al-Nassr’s striker would undoubtedly require a lot of diplomacy from Martinez, given what happened the last time a coach decided to bench the team’s captain.

It took place at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, with then-coach Fernando Santos replacing Ronaldo with Goncalo Ramos, who responded by scoring a hat-trick against Switzerland in a 6-1 last-16 win. Ramos retained his place in the quarter-finals against Morocco, but Portugal eventually lost 1-0.

However, that was the end of the relationship between Santos and Ronaldo.

“We haven’t spoken since Qatar,” Santos admitted to A Bola last November. “I had a very strong bond with Ronaldo, a personal one, more than a professional one.

“We met at Sporting when he was 19 and from then on it just got stronger. It was a bit like a father and son relationship. But I had to make a decision and when I came to explain it to him, he didn’t take it very well. Anyway, he knows I’m here.”

Is Martinez willing to endure the same situation?