Why Is Cristiano Ronaldo STILL Starting For Portugal?

Side note, Pepe has been outstanding in the Euros, despite being 74 years old

The commentator in the Slovenia game said 'If Portugal don't let Ronaldo take the free kicks, he'll pick up the ball and go home!'

I think how Ronaldo is currently playing, he should be coming of the bench with 20-25 mins of play time. I think he would be more affective and likely to score being fresh against tired defenders.

He was completely invisible against France tonight as well, it was like Portugal were playing with 10 men and a space heater in the box

This makes Kroos‘ decision look like one of the greatest exits from the big stage

This is what happens to athletes who don't know when to call it quits. The last memory fans have of your career isn't you at your best, but at your worst.

Portugal fans ≠ Portuguese people. We’re often mischaracterized, our grievances with Ronaldo are old by now. The criticism started while he was still playing for Real Madrid, that he only delivered while playing for club and rarely for country. Euro 2016 was exhausting to watch and it was shocking to everyone that we even won it. Nobody expected to win it. I had to convince my friends to watch the final until the end because everyone wanted to leave before the match ended, it’s hard to support Portugal because they don’t deliver consistently despite how good the squad is. They get our hopes up just to crash them. I made an experiment at work one day and asked my coworkers if they liked Ronaldo. Nobody said yes 😭 Sure, he’s “given” us a lot, but you need to learn when to say goodbye. As a Catholic country, it’s very hard for Portuguese people to be honest and admit he’s past his prime, because we need to be “thankful”. A meteor might strike the country if we’re not “thankful for everything he’s done”, I guess. And we need to thank him by allowing him to start every game and further ruin his legacy. There’s a difference between Portuguese people in Portugal and emigrants outside the country. Being away from home, it’s only normal that they would latch onto national symbols, like Ronaldo, and idolize him. I live here and I don’t feel the need to constantly be patriotic. But if I travel abroad and say I’m from Portugal, people might mention Ronaldo’s name. Immigrants feel a sense of pride. It’s only natural that you’d find plenty of Ronaldo fans at a game abroad, not saying you wouldn’t find them here in Portugal, but you’d notice the difference. And of course, there’s the people who are simply fans of Ronaldo, 0 relation to Portugal, that sometimes end up being more vocal than us. They disguise themselves as Portuguese people on social media, and they’re often the ones in the comments of the national team’s social media. There’s a lot of friction between us and his fans and a lot of us are counting the days until he retires so they can stop pretending they care about our national team. It’s impossible to criticize Portugal’s performances, as one naturally does about their own country, without a gang of them showing up to h*rass you (I’m sure you’re experiencing that after this video). Sometimes it feels like the national team is being taken away from us, we’re robbed of the simple right of criticizing them just like everyone does every time these tournaments come up.

Whose watching after Portugal are out of the euros? 😅

Ronaldo is like the real life version of Dorian Gray. At least in the sense that you just know he has a massive portrait of himself somewhere in his house.

He seemed okay in the group stage, but the Slovenia game was just frustrating. The fact he was just taking every free kick, including shooting from a stupid angle on the far left.

Foreign people need to understand that most Portuguese people above the age of 15 and that follow football don't want Ronaldo on the team. Or at least not as a starter and playing every minute. He only does it because of the power he has within the portuguese federation, the money he generates to the federation and the side payments everybody involved gets paid. Supporters don't get paid and only thing they get is to see their team being crap when they should be one of the top teams. Also, the global Media is one the reasons he is still there because he creates stories and revenue to media worlwide. Why would the German TV broadcast that sends the video worldwide have one dedicated camera to follow Ronaldo from the moment he leaves the tunnel until he enters again? Just an example...

Completely tainted his United career forever. Why he couldn’t just ride the rest of his contract out for a few more months and leave like a professional is beyond me. Only good thing about him doing his interview with papa piers Morgan was him calling the glazers out. Everything else was completely out of line. Also find it funny how he said in like 2018 he’d never go to a Saudi or Qatari club to finish his career lol

In the game vs slovenia i saw something i had never seen in a Major tournament knockout game: the entire portugal team cared more about gifting ronaldo his goal, to break that scoring record, rather than trying to win. It was mindboggling.

literally cost them yesterday against France. Ronaldo played 120 minutes + penalties didnt offer anything.

The guy is finished but his ego is that enormous it won’t let him admit it. They could have won tonight against the French if they did not have a sulking passenger on the pitch.

it’s very sad that we’re wasting away a golden generation just to appease a 39 year old man child 😂😂

Roberto Martinez was only hired to keep Ronaldo happy and not bench him. Fernando santos did a terrible job since 2019 but was only sacked for benching him

Hate this egomaniac type of players. Can no longer sprint, jump, dribble. Pressing was under divas level his whole life. But demands every ball, sometimes angry if someone else scores than him.

In the last two major tournaments man has 1 goal in 9 games 😅 Clearly holding back a team with a lot of potential

Alfie really said Portugal was closer to elimination than England when England was 1 minute away from going out😂