Ronaldo and Portugal die wondering after limp World Cup exit to below-par Spain | OneFootball

There are no good ways to go out of a World Cup. But Portugal chose a particularly bad one.

Roberto Martinez, Cristiano Ronaldo and an absurdly talent-laden squad chose to die wondering. There’s no shame in going out to the European champions. Spain are obviously a fantastic team, whose absurd bench strength was the point of difference here.

But to seemingly barely even try and lay a glove on them just feels like a miserable wasted opportunity. It’s Ronaldo’s last, and surely Martinez’s too. Come the next tournament we’ll find out just how much that pair have held them back.

Portugal have spent this whole World Cup looking far less than the sum of their considerable parts. Is that Martinez’s fault? Is it Ronaldo’s? And why can’t it be both?

It has felt at times like this has been a supremely talented group of footballers reduced to the support role in a self-indulgent farewell that would make Ben Stokes blush.

Portugal could have been contenders here. They have a midfield the envy of the world. They have all manner of ways to hurt you going forward, at least in theory. There is no real weak link in that defence, either.

But all that is on paper. On grass it became the Ronaldo Show even as it became increasingly clear he was no longer able to carry that load. Neither he nor anybody else with the authority to do so around this set-up was willing to face up to that fact.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a national team operating in specific and direct service of a supreme stand-out player.

In international football, where the intricate deep connection and systems of club football cannot be replicated in the time available, it’s as good an approach as any. Norway do it. Argentina do it. England are unapologetically built to maximise the potential for Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham to dominate, even though it meant leaving talented players behind.

But Erling Haaland and Lionel Messi and England’s star duo – even Kylian Mbappe as the focal point of an absurd embarrassment of riches for France – are still all willing parts of something bigger.

They’re the main men, but they aren’t the only men. Portugal at this tournament have felt like Ronaldo + 10. There’s a separation there that simply doesn’t exist with those other, better teams.

We can all speculate on where and how the blame should be doled out there, but a fundamental part of it really might just be as simple as Ronaldo just no longer being worth that station.

It was once again impossible to say he was bad in this game, because to be bad you have to be something. He was nothing. Bob The Cat has had greater impact on this World Cup. Scratch that, Mary The Cat has had greater impact.

Nineteen touches. That was Ronaldo’s sum total contribution to, surely, his final World Cup match. Nineteen touches in 102 minutes on the pitch. In fairness, Spain’s Ferran Torres managed only 18, but he did come on in the 74th minute.

There was a moment deep into stoppage time, minutes after Mikel Merino had within minutes made the sort of impact Ronaldo and his team-mates could not, where Ronaldo stood still 35 yards from goal rather than rushing to get in the box.

It felt so revealing. Even here, in the dying moments of it all, he was hanging back, hoping for the chance to get a Hail Mary pot shot to salvage something rather than getting himself where he and his team needed him to be.

That was the great puzzle of Portugal’s failure to launch in this tournament. They rendered a squad of elite talent subservient to one fading superstar, and then didn’t even play to his strengths.

Ronaldo’s career has gone through many evolutions and revolutions from the tricky winger who started out.

The speed and fast-twitch is gone. The tricks are seldom seen now. He will not run past a player. He will not touch the ball much. But what can he still do? He can still tower above a defender and head the ball with the best of them. Portugal rarely if ever attempted it.

The plan all along seemed to be that Ronaldo’s presence alone would be enough. That he just needed one to go in off his aura and the floodgates would open. It never seemed like happening here, against a Spain side who now simply refuse on principle to concede a goal.

Their defence has been superb here, the most alarming element of it all that Pedro Porro appears to have turned into prime Cafu at right-back.

The rapport he’s built with Lamine Yamal is something to behold. Come on, Spurs; time to show a bit of ambition and bring the youngster to Our League.

But Spain too were frustrating and frustrated going forward here. An early missed chance from Mikel Oyarzabal, a smart double save from Diogo Costa to deny Yamal and then more impressively Alex Baena was the only real moment of note and a shot that ricocheted onto his own bar via Porro’s head were the only clear chances in a game that all appeared to have agreed was meandering inexorably towards extra-time and perhaps another five or even six Ronaldo touches.

Until Spain went to their bench, a move that has significant implications for the rest of the tournament. They have absurd depth there, and in Merino a man who simply adores cosplaying as an elite striker when the mood takes him.

We’ve all seen him score vital clutch goals for Arsenal, and he took the one late chance that came his way here with trademark aplomb in a game where far more vaunted and celebrated heroes had come up short in those key moments.

It’s hard now to resist throwing things forward to a France-Spain semi-final, but on this evidence Spain will need to show more in that than they did here should that seemingly inevitable meeting come to pass. Not every team with a superstar turns it into a drain.