Jorge Jesus and Cristiano Ronaldo have a great relationship together, as the duo won the Saudi Pro League title with Al Nassr in what was arguably world football's most captivating title race during the 2025/26 season.
After Roberto Martinez stepped down from the Portuguese national team following yet another unsuccessful World Cup and lost Golden generation on his resume, Jesus has now taken over as the main man for the Selecao.
Although Cristiano has played his last World Cup match, which was a tough 1-0 loss to rivals Spain, he is still going to be playing for the national team until he retires, which will, presumably, be before the 2030 World Cup in the Mediterranean for the 41 year old.
Cristiano Ronaldo put on notice
As Jesus has taken over, he immediately defended Cristiano as a key player for him in his first press conference, meanwhile he took other star players like Vitinha and Joao Neves to task, with Portuguese fans happy he called them out for their horrible World Cups despite playing so well for back to back Champions League winners PSG these last two seasons.
In case anyone got false ideas that Jorge Jesus would show favoritism to Cristiano Ronaldo because of their successful work together at Al Nassr, the veteran coach made it clear that he would not be afraid to tell Cristiano he is toast if he fails to deliver.
He brought up a strange Neymar anecdote to make that very thinly veiled point at the press conference, as captured by Madrid Sports, "The past and the name for me do not count. I've already coached two of the three best in the world. I'm just missing Messi, but I coach Ronaldo and I coached Neymar. And to Neymar one day I said: 'You, finished'. Whatever is best for our team and our National Team will be done."
Whether or not Jesus actually runs Portugal like that remains to be seen, but based on what he has done in the past and the strength of this statement, Portuguese national team fans have no reason to believe otherwise, which is a good thing.
So, then, it speaks volumes to the real problems at Portugal that Jesus has said that at his press conference but also said at the same time that Cristiano is crucial to him and not a problem at all. So then the real problems are known to Jesus, and unlike Roberto Martinez, he isn't going to let chronic underperformers like Ruben Dias and Bruno Fernandes walk away unscathed.
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