The world waved the first part of the prolonged farewell to the legendary forward Cristiano Ronaldo, whose elimination at the hands of Portugal's rivals Spain in the World Cup Round of 16 means that he will end his career without a World Cup. Because Ronaldo informed reporters after the brutal 1-0 loss to Lamine Yamal and friends that the 2026 World Cup was indeed his last.
Despite scoring three goals at the competition and easily being one of the team's best players alongside Nuno Mendes and Rafael Leao, Cristiano absorbed a barrage of criticism that really should have went to teammates like Ruben Dias, Vitinha, and Bruno Fernandes who were all among the worst players of any country at this World Cup.
It is a story as old as time for Cristiano, answering for the ills of other players at Portugal despite his accomplishments. But he will be happy that Portugal are at least moving on from one of the greatest charlatans in coaching, Roberto Martinez, who now has on his resume that he ruined golden generations at both Belgium and Portugal in his career.
Cristiano Ronaldo's national team future is obvious
Replacing Martinez is Jorge Jesus, the coach who won the Saudi Pro League at Al Nassr alongside Cristiano Ronaldo last season. And Jesus made it crystal clear that despite Ronaldo playing his last World Cup and all the media controversy about whether or not he is still an asset to the country, Jesus still views Ronaldo as 100 percent an asset to the team.
Jesus made his stance clear to the media, via Fabrizio Romano, “Cristiano will never be a problem for the national team, nor for me. Cris is a symbol of Portuguese football. He wants to continue at Al Nassr and will end his career at Al Nassr. It’s easy to work with Cristiano”.
That last line will stand out the most and is a slap in the face of the loud and far too proud pundits who try to paint Cristiano as a selfish player who cannot get along with his teammates or is holding the team back. Jorge Jesus saw first hand that the man is still a winner, and he is "easy to work with" and will "never be a problem".
It was jarring, though, to see how Lamine Yamal, his coach Roberto Martinez, and even other opponents like Yamal showed Cristiano the utmost respect whereas the worst players on the team like Bruno Fernandes and Ruben Dias showed no support and made excuses to the media about their performances. It shows that, like at Real Madrid with players like Alvaro Carreras and Dani Ceballos, often a team's worst performers have the biggest egos and cause the most problems, leaving th superstars - like Cristiano, Vinicius Jr., and Jude Bellingham - to suffer for their ills.
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