2024-07-13 07:53:08
Portugal pay the price for coach’s lack of courage to bench ageing star
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In the TV series Lost, some islanders believed that if they didn’t enter a sequence of numbers into a computer every 108 minutes and press “run,” something bad would happen. The sequence – 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42 – was the Doomsday equation, invented by fictional Sardinian mathematician Enzo Valenzetti.
Roberto Martinez has approached this European Championship as if he is bent over a keyboard, waiting for the signal to dial 7 and press the button with Ronaldo’s face on it, fearing the world will end if he does not do so during the countdown before each match, writes The Athletic’s James Horncastle.
Assurances that the sun would still rise if he left Ronaldo out of his starting lineup would probably not have changed Martinez’s mind. Only goalkeeper Diogo Costa has played more minutes for Portugal this summer. Martinez kept faith in Ronaldo, even when he failed to beat Jindrich Stanek, the Czech Republic goalkeeper who once played for Hyde United in England’s seventh tier.
He backed him up against a heavily rotated Turkey side that included reserve goalkeeper Altay Bayindir, whose only appearance for United this season came against Newport County in the FA Cup, where he was beaten twice. He backed Ronaldo up when Georgia’s back three of Guram Kashia, 36, and Giorgi Gvelesiani, 33, a central midfielder who plays for Iran’s Persepolis, completely shut him out.
The lack of goals didn’t seem to bother Martinez. The limitation it placed on his team’s potential didn’t bother him much either. He just kept pressing the button.
Without Ronaldo’s clever move, Martinez argued, Francisco Conceição would not have scored Portugal’s stoppage-time winner against the Czech Republic. His assist for Bruno Fernandes against Turkey was “a real moment of Portuguese football that could be shown in every academy in Portugal and in the world of football” because, as “a goal-oriented striker who lives for goals,” Ronaldo showed an unusual altruism. His tears after Jan Oblak saved his first penalty in Portugal’s match against Slovenia were “incredible for a man who has won everything and experienced everything,” Martinez said. “He doesn’t need to worry so much, and that’s why I thank him for who he is. For taking care of the team.”
The less Ronaldo did for the team, the more important he became to Martinez. He indulged him. He buttered him up. After all, it was hard not to confuse Martinez with the fans running onto the pitch and the selfie-seekers, but even they had stopped trying to get to Ronaldo by the quarter-finals. This was supposed to be Portugal’s most talented team since the 2004 team, the one with Luis Figo, Manuel Rui Costa, Deco and baby Ronaldo. They had won every game in qualifying by a goal difference of +34. But the goals weren’t coming at the Euros.
“Luck, or lack thereof, is part of football,” Martinez said. Portugal had an xG of 9.41 and scored three times in Germany. Five if you count the own goals by the Czech Republic and Turkey. Portugal created the best chances against France. “The opponents weren’t that effective either,” said Martinez’s opponent Didier Deschamps. “But they had the monumental Mike Maignan.” His saves from Bruno Fernandes and especially Vitinha were outstanding. The quality of the goalkeepers was a factor in Portugal’s exit. Maignan, along with Oblak and Georgi Mamardashvili, made saves that proved decisive.
But for a talented Portugal side that has gone three games without scoring, it is worrying, even if it comes in the context of France’s unusual problems in front of goal. “You can’t control whether the ball hits the post or goes in,” said Martinez, referring to Joao Felix’s miss in the shootout. “What we can control is the number of times we enter the final third. We controlled the game.”
As usual, Martinez came to the post-match press conference with possession and corner statistics to bolster his “we deserved to win” argument. In fairness, Hamburg has been the scene of Portugal’s best performance at the Euros. Yet the previous matches had not been entirely convincing. Portugal trailed against the Czechs and needed a stoppage-time goal from Conceicao to win. Turkey made four changes to their line-up, replacing Mert Gunok, Kenan Yildiz, Mert Muldur and Arda Guler, and remained in the game until Samet Akaydin’s own goal. “It’s a sad moment,” Martinez said.
A story of missed opportunities. Could Martinez have brought on Lille right-back Thiago Santos to offer a better alternative to Joao Cancelo than Nelson Semedo, who at one stage at the Volksparkstadion was spectacularly outpaced by the desperately poor Kylian Mbappe? Couldn’t he have used Diogo Jota or Gonçalo Ramos more? Why did he replace Bruno Fernandes with 15 minutes left in the France game rather than Ronaldo?
The Portugal captain had two touches in the first 20 minutes. He was comically caught offside by Pepe’s clearance, and then missed a golden opportunity early in extra time when Conceicao laid it off. Ronaldo lobbed the ball so high it almost sailed into the port city’s bay. And yet Martinez persisted.
In a coin toss, Ronaldo even preferred Portugal to take the second penalty, even though research has shown that taking the first is an advantage because the pressure on the player taking the second is greater. When Theo Hernandez scored the winning penalty, Ronaldo kept his distance from his teammates. He did not console João Félix, as Pepe and Ruben Dias did. Eventually, he went over and gave a crying Pepe a long hug. It felt like the end of an era.
Martinez believes it is too early to comment on whether the defeat to France will be Ronaldo’s last international game. “We just finished the match. It’s all too fresh. We are nervous after the defeat,” he said.
But if there is one lesson to be learned from this tournament, it is that Martinez must realise that Ronaldo being benched does not necessarily mean the end of the world.
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