10 men and a statue: Portugal are sacrificing another World Cup for Cristiano Ronaldo’s ego | OneFootball

Anything Lionel Messi could do, Cristiano Ronaldo couldn't do better. A day after the Argentinian began his World Cup in a manner to suggest his talent is timeless, his great rival started in a way to show his powers have waned with the passing of time.

Messi’s treble against Algeria gives him 16 World Cup goals, double Ronaldo’s tally. More pertinently, it justified Argentina’s policy of building a team around an ageing legend. For the third tournament in row, however, the danger is that Ronaldo holds Portugal back. A draw with the Democratic Republic of Congo highlighted the difficulties of trying to win the World Cup with a team of 10 men and a statue. For one of the favourites, it was a wretched start.

Houston, they had a problem. Or he was the problem. Ronaldo’s impotence condemned Portugal to a draw which, in turn, could mean there is no last reunion with Messi in the quarter-finals in Kansas City: fail to win the group and they will have to plot a different path altogether. As Ronaldo appeared in a sixth World Cup, he remains yet to become the first player to score in six. He did not get particularly close.

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Ronaldo has now gone 10 matches at the World Cup or Euros without scoring for Portugal (Reuters)

That Portugal had three-quarters of possession and an xG of just 0.69 could indicate their striker was starved of service. But when the player in question lacked the speed to run behind defenders or the movement to elude them, Portugal were trying to beat an obdurate side with a non-presence in the box. They could not press or stretch a defence or drag opponents out of position. Instead, Ronaldo stood on the fringes of the game. Even when a cross was headed in for a seemingly trademark Ronaldo goal, the scorer was actually the diminutive midfielder Joao Neves.

The veteran eventually mustered three shots, none on target. There was a cost to Portugal beyond the inability to test goalkeeper Lionel Mpasi; another Lionel to come out on top against Ronaldo. For his first shot, the 41-year-old stabbed wide but should have left the ball for Bruno Fernandes, free behind him and visibly irritated.

Ronaldo lingered on the pitch throughout the game. In one respect, there is a logic in that: why take off a man with a record 143 international goals, and the best part of 1,000 in professional football, when his team required a goal? He had moved so little that even a man in his forties may not have been exhausted.

And yet, it underlined the impression he gets preferential treatment. Two of the front three were substituted: the booked Bernardo Silva at half-time, Pedro Neto after 70 minutes, Even when Goncalo Ramos came on, it was Vitinha who went off.

It conformed to a theme. In Euro 2024, Roberto Martinez removed Ronaldo in just one of his five appearances. The strange alliance of captain and manager meant that decisions only impacted other players.

Since then, Ronaldo has scored in qualifiers, in the Nations League, in the Saudi Pro League. And yet an ability to average almost a goal a game there again felt irrelevant at elite international level. The most significant number by the end was not Ronaldo’s 973 career goals but the nine tournament games he has gone without finding the net.

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Roberto Martinez has been accused of being too ‘scared’ to take Ronaldo off despite Portugal’s struggles (Reuters)

His drought in World Cups and European Championships now stretches back 10 matches, 801 minutes. There is a question of how long that barren run would have to be for Martinez to drop him, or substitute him. There is, admittedly, the issue that Portugal lack high-class centre-forwards now, with Ramos now a Paris Saint-Germain substitute.

But the replacement wingers Rafael Leao and Francisco Conceicao at least brought verve, with a speed and willingness to dribble at defenders. Fernandes can like having runners around him, and arguably had too few, particularly in Portugal’s starting 11. Vitinha and Neves can excel at stylish passing, but they still benefit from speed in front of them. Silva likes quick combination play. Can he do that with Ronaldo?

Maybe, in the final reckoning, Portugal suffered from the clemency that was supposed to benefit them. Ronaldo should have been banned for this game, due to his red card against Ireland. A fixation on the famous that seems shared by Fifa and the United States may have been the real reason he escaped with a suspended suspension.

But had Ronaldo been ineligible, Portugal would have been forced to investigate life without him, to either try another striker or another way of playing. And, terrifically as DR Congo played and impossible as it is to know for certain, it is hard to escape the sense that Portugal would have won if they played without Ronaldo. And so, as in Euro 2024, they risk sacrificing another chance of glory on the altar of his ego.