"Cristiano must be present," said Portugal manager Roberto Martinez after his side drew 1-1 with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. "It doesn't make sense to take off the greatest goalscorer in football history in a match where we need to score goals."
Except scoring goals is precisely what Ronaldo can no longer do. That's not an opinion. That's what happened against DR Congo — a 41-year-old man, stiff-limbed and increasingly irrelevant, occupying the striker's position while a squad loaded with genuine world-class talent tried to work around him.
A squad that deserves better
This Portugal team should genuinely frighten people. Bruno Fernandes was the Premier League's player of the season. Vitinha and Joao Neves just powered PSG to Champions League glory. Then there's Ruben Dias, Joao Felix, Bernardo Silva, Cancelo, Leao, Neto — a roster so deep it almost strains credibility. On paper, they're a legitimate World Cup contender.
On the pitch against DR Congo, they looked like a team pulling in two directions: one toward their manager's tactical setup, and one toward Ronaldo's gravitational pull. A pull that no longer generates goals — just possession-killing moments, frustrated sky-ward screams, and weak snatches at balls that once would have been buried.
He's lost the pace. He's lost the sharpness. And the really damning part? He looks stiff just walking around the pitch.
Meanwhile, Messi — his eternal rival, three years his junior at 38 — scored three against Algeria, picking his moments with the quiet intelligence of a player who knows he can no longer do everything but knows exactly what he still can. Forty-year-old Cape Verde goalkeeper Vozinha made seven saves in a 0-0 draw with Spain. The other veterans at this tournament are adapting. Ronaldo is not.
Martinez's silence is the real problem
The bigger issue isn't Ronaldo's decline — that's inevitable, forgivable, human. The issue is that Martinez appears too overwhelmed by the myth to confront the reality. Publicly defending a player's starting place because of what he once was, not what he is now, is how tournaments get thrown away.
Portugal's odds as serious trophy contenders depend entirely on this squad functioning as a unit. Right now, it isn't — and the manager's post-match comments suggest he has no intention of changing that anytime soon.
"Cristiano is a monster," someone said about him in the Juventus documentary. At his peak, absolutely. At 41, drifting across the World Cup's biggest stage, he's something closer to a cautionary tale that nobody in the Portugal camp is willing to tell him.
