So this was how it ended for Cristiano Ronaldo. Not with the ultimate glory but a certain predictability. Portugal’s World Cup was curtailed in a manner that was all too foreseeable: with Ronaldo failing to score, with younger men being removed as he stayed on the pitch, with the sense that their most famous player had been put before the team, perhaps for one last time.
His sixth World Cup will be his last, he had said. In a career as long as his, history can repeat itself. Portugal went out 1-0 to Spain in the last 16 in 2010. Sixteen years later, the same scoreline sent Spain into the last eight for the first time since their victorious campaign in South Africa. The dead-eyed finish from Mikel Merino won a local derby that was transported to Texas.
Spain were rewarded for managerial intervention, Portugal punished for a passiveness and the preferential treatment afforded to their captain. Luis de la Fuente made the telling substitutions. Both supplier and scorer, Ferran Torres and Merino, were brought off the bench. In a match featuring many an accomplished passer, much the most incisive ball came from the Barcelona forward. The Arsenal man’s clinical finish seemed to catch Portugal unawares, as though they had expected extra time.
So Roberto Martinez’s reign has concluded, leaving one Spaniard in Houston who should harbour regrets. Portugal were spurred into action by conceding against Croatia. The Spanish goal came far later; the sense of drift that had characterised Portugal before then became costly. Apart from a ferocious Nuno Mendes shot, which deflected off Pedro Porro and on to the bar, Martinez’s Portugal did too little, attempted too little. Their only sense of urgency came when the diminutive Bernardo Silva headed over in the 96th minute and Joao Neves wide in the 99th.
Ronaldo had their twin shots on target but just 19 touches and a minimal impact. He is not alone in failing to breach the Spanish defence. No one else has: they are the solitary team in this World Cup who are yet to concede. Unai Simon has not been beaten in his last 609 minutes on the global stage so chances were always going to be at a premium.
In that context, the 41-year-old’s task was always going to be difficult and, for the record, Ronaldo has had 40 per cent of the shots on target against Spain in this World Cup.
But he looked haunted by the eventual defeat; an odyssey in World Cups that began two decades ago, and before Lamine Yamal was born, ended in anticlimax.
In reality, there has been plenty of it in Ronaldo’s six World Cups. He is the only player ever to score in half a dozen, and ended up just one goal behind Pele. But he had a lone knockout goal, Thursday’s penalty against Croatia. His Portugal were semi-finalists in 2006, but only have one quarter-final since then which, given some of the talents at their disposal, amounts to underachievement.
In his mid-thirties, Ronaldo went from solution to problem. No foresight was required to argue he was too old, too immobile, a shadow of his former self. So it proved. His last three tournaments have seen a drawn-out decline. An old ally, Fernando Santos, dropped him in Qatar in 2022. A newer collaborator, Martinez, appeared still more wedded to a living legend. He only substituted Ronaldo once this year, to his captain’s disbelief against Croatia.
Across the 2022 and 2026 World Cups and Euro 2024, Ronaldo scored four goals in 15 games: two of them penalties, two against Uzbekistan. Against Ghana, Uruguay, South Korea, Switzerland, Morocco, Czechia, Turkey, Georgia, Slovenia, France, DR Congo, Colombia, Croatia and Spain, he had no goals in open play. Portugal failed to find the net in four of their six knockout matches.
Goncalo Ramos, who scored four goals in those knockout ties, who got a brilliant decider against Croatia in Toronto, did not get off the bench against Spain; but then he was Ronaldo’s deputy. Instead, there came the familiar pattern of wingers being substituted and of the Champions League final man of the match Vitinha going off again. Martinez is a manager who has shown he can be creative in his choices; yet he placed himself in a straitjacket by making Ronaldo the sacred cow of his team.
Would he do it all again? He has given few indications he considered changing course. When Ronaldo stalked off in disbelief against Croatia, it was with the possibility his time in World Cups had ended there. It was not the finish he was looking for: but nor was this.
He goes out having played 27 World Cup games; the second most ever, second to Lionel Messi. But, despite those 11 goals, it is a moot point if he ranks as a success in World Cups. And, while he scored three times in North America, his tournament ranked as a final failure. Ronaldo will never be a World Cup winner, and since 2006, he has never come remotely close.
