It was not embarrassing to go out at the quarter-final stage to one of the favourites, but Portugal could have expected more from a team that had Bruno Fernandes, Bernardo Silva, Joao Cancelo and Joao Palinha in its ranks. Martinez’s predecessor, Fernando Santos, was brave enough to drop Ronaldo at the 2022 World Cup and his replacement, Goncalo Ramos, scored a hat-trick in the 6-1 win over Switzerland. Yet Ronaldo remains, beginning another tilt at the Nations League against Croatia on Thursday night. Santos is managing Azerbaijan.
Clearly Ronaldo has achieved enough in his career to earn a send-off on his own terms, but such arrangements rely on a certain level of reasonableness. This is the man who insists on taking woeful free kicks for his country despite a record of one scored from 60 attempts at major tournaments. So why is he sticking around?
There is the prospect of setting records that are unlikely to be broken. Appearing at six different European Championships, a world-leading 130 international goals, 140 in the Champions League. He has 57 million YouTube subscribers for a two-week old channel specialising in dubbed family-centric videos with his partner Georgina Rodríguez and earnest chat with Rio Ferdinand. The pivot to video is well under way, but at some point a life without competitive football will also begin.
Ronaldo had a dry-run for his eventual retirement last week when Uefa honoured him with commemorative ball trophy and the role of chief button presser for the semi-automated Champions League draw. He looked incredibly bored by the process, aghast at his new position as observer to the action rather than a protagonist. If one could overlook his history of histrionics and entitlement, it could even be possible to feel sorry for him.
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