Portugal opened their 2026 World Cup with a 1-1 draw against DR Congo, and the scoreline was generous. João Neves scored early, Yoane Wissa equalised before half-time, and Roberto Martínez’s team spent too much of the match looking slow, predictable and short of ideas.
That should sound ridiculous when you look at the squad. Portugal have Vitinha, João Neves, Bruno Fernandes, Bernardo Silva, Rafael Leão, Nuno Mendes, João Cancelo, Rúben Dias, Diogo Costa, Gonçalo Ramos and Francisco Conceição. This is a group built for speed, control, pressing and rotation. Instead, the whole structure still bends around Cristiano Ronaldo.
Ronaldo played the full 90 minutes against DR Congo. He had 25 touches, fewer than any Portugal player who stayed on the pitch for more than 45 minutes, and missed two second-half chances that could have changed the game. For fans following the World Cup, team selection and football betting today, the bigger story is now impossible to ignore: Portugal are treating Ronaldo’s past like it still solves their present.
Fernando Santos started the problem
Fernando Santos will always have Euro 2016. That achievement changed Portuguese football forever. But by the end of his time with the national team, Portugal had become emotionally trapped by Ronaldo’s status.
The clearest warning came at the 2022 World Cup. Ronaldo was left out of the starting XI against Switzerland in the last 16. Gonçalo Ramos started instead and scored a hat-trick in a 6-1 win. Portugal looked faster, freer and more balanced. Bruno Fernandes had more space. João Félix moved with more clarity. The attack stopped waiting for one fixed reference point.
That match should have marked the beginning of a new Portugal. Instead, the old tension returned almost immediately. Portugal lost to Morocco in the quarter-final, Ronaldo’s tournament ended in tears, and Santos left soon after. The lesson seemed obvious: Portugal could respect Ronaldo’s legacy while building a team that no longer depended on him.
Four years later, the same argument is still alive.
Roberto Martínez has continued the same mistake
Roberto Martínez inherited a better squad than Santos had in his final years. He has enough talent to build one of the most modern teams in the tournament. Vitinha and João Neves can control midfield. Bruno Fernandes can create from several zones. Bernardo Silva can slow or speed the game. Rafael Leão gives Portugal direct running. Nuno Mendes changes the left side completely when fit.
This should be Portugal’s most complete generation. It has Champions League winners, Premier League experience, PSG’s midfield engine, Benfica-produced energy, Milan explosiveness and defensive quality all over the pitch.
Yet against DR Congo, Portugal still looked like a team waiting for Ronaldo to finish a move rather than a team built to overwhelm opponents collectively.
Martínez defended the decision to keep him on, arguing that it made little sense to remove the best goalscorer in football history when Portugal needed a goal. The problem is that history does not press centre-backs, stretch defensive lines or turn half-chances into constant danger at 41. Ronaldo can still score. He can still matter. But the automatic starter who plays 90 minutes regardless of the game state is becoming a tactical limit.
Messi, Haaland and Mbappé showed the difference
The comparison with Lionel Messi, Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappé from the opening round is brutal for Portugal.
Messi is the closest comparison because of age, status and emotional weight. He is almost 39, yet Argentina’s 3-0 win over Algeria still revolved around what he can do now. His hat-trick was a present-tense football argument. Argentina did not carry him through the match. He decided it.
Haaland made a different kind of statement. Norway beat Iraq 4-1, and he scored twice. Norway’s plan was clear: get their best striker into dangerous areas, use his physical edge and let the rest of the team function around his current strengths. Haaland is at his peak, and Norway play like they know exactly what he gives them.
Mbappé did something similar for France. They were poor for long spells against Senegal, then he scored twice in a 3-1 win and turned a difficult opener into a result. France were far from perfect, but Mbappé still gave them speed, threat, running power and end product. He stretched the match rather than shrinking it.
That is where Portugal’s Ronaldo dilemma becomes so clear. Messi, Haaland and Mbappé gave their teams a reason to build around them in 2026. Ronaldo gave Portugal a memory of what he used to decide. Asking him to carry the same tactical weight as those three is no longer ambition. It is denial.
Gonçalo Ramos should not be an emergency option
Gonçalo Ramos does not have Ronaldo’s aura. Almost nobody does. But Portugal do not need aura to beat the best teams. They need pressure, mobility and balance.
Ramos gives them a more natural modern centre-forward profile. He presses better. He runs channels more often. He allows Leão, Bruno, Bernardo and Vitinha to combine without every attack leaning toward one fixed target in the box.
He also has World Cup proof. That Switzerland hat-trick in 2022 remains one of Portugal’s best knockout performances this century. It showed what this team can look like when the front line moves with energy rather than ceremony.
Ronaldo should still have a role. He can be dangerous in the final 25 minutes, especially against tired defenders or in matches where Portugal need a penalty-box presence. That version of Ronaldo makes sense. The untouchable starter does not.
Portugal’s problem is courage
The issue is not whether Ronaldo deserves respect. He does. The issue is whether Portugal are willing to make football decisions instead of emotional ones.
Santos delayed the transition. Martínez has inherited the same pressure and, so far, chosen the same compromise. The result is a team with elite midfielders, explosive forwards and world-class defenders playing as if the whole structure must still orbit one man.
Portugal can still recover. Uzbekistan and Colombia give Martínez time to adjust before the knockout rounds. But the DR Congo match should be treated as a warning, not a bad day.
Portugal waited generations for a squad this deep. Wasting it because nobody wants to tell Ronaldo the truth would be a painfully familiar kind of failure: talented, avoidable and entirely self-inflicted.
