Portugal head coach Roberto Martinez defended Cristiano Ronaldo after they played a 1-1 draw against DR Congo on Wednesday at NRG Stadium. Ronaldo was not up to the mark and failed to deliver the goods for the national team.
Ronaldo was held scoreless for the fifth straight World Cup match and the 10th consecutive game in major competitions, including World Cups and European championships.
The Portuguese veteran hasn’t scored a field goal in the last five years and last found the back of the net on June 19, 2021.
Ronaldo played all 90 minutes on Wednesday despite producing just three shot attempts and putting none on goal.
“It makes no sense to get the best goal scorer in world football out in a game that you need goals,” Martinez said.
Ronaldo is Portugal’s leading career scorer, with 143 goals. Martinez said they started well but could not keep the same impetus.
“We started very, very well,” Martinez said, “our level, our control, the way we got into the penalty area. Scoring the goal — which is normally a moment when the emotion of scoring helps you keep control of the match and try to score a second goal — had the opposite effect.
“Instead, it made us want to keep possession of the ball. We gave Congo the opportunity to reorganize their defensive structure and set up their counterattacks, and we lost a lot of depth. That helped Congo.”
The Spanish manager said there is no need to hit the panic buttons after only one game in the tournament.
“The World Cup is a tournament where these things happen,” he said. “Argentina lost to Saudi Arabia [in 2022] and then went on to win the World Cup. In 2010, Spain lost to Switzerland and then won the World Cup. Those weren’t performances that looked like those of eventual champions, but that’s part of the process.
“What we’re talking about here is the first match of a World Cup,” Martinez emphasized. “Today, after we scored the opening goal, those emotions had a negative effect on our performance. We stopped taking risks, we stopped looking for space, we stopped reaching the final third. That was more a matter of emotion than of tactics or technique. It happens. It’s part of the World Cup. Now we evaluate it and improve for the second match.”
Portugal will next play Uzbekistan on Tuesday in Houston.
