Is it realistic that after the Euro or once Ronaldo finally reaches Ali Daei's record, he would be pushed more to the background? It just seems weird to me that a team with such attacking outlet (Jota, Neto, Joao Felix, Bernardo Silva, Bruno Fernandes) would try to shoehorn a static presence of his instead. Sure it helped in the box helps against Luxembourg, but I just think it would be too much of a burden against the bigger teams. Then again France wins stuff with Giroud in their team, however unfancy their football is.
Static? He keeps bailing us out many times just like some months ago vs Sweden away.
There is this idea that Portugal plays much better without him, based on some games that were very easy (and ignoring the games we also played atrociously and Ronaldo didn't play).
In fact, there is this weird agenda that João Félix has to play always, that Ronaldo ruins the team, Ricardo Pereira doesn't exist, etc
João Félix still hasn't done anything at all in the national team even after almost a year being a starter, Jota came in once in the last months and the difference is enormous.
Also note that André Silva is in fantastic form and he barely played in these 3 games, meanwhile João Félix, Rafa, etc, all got the time, and no, this is not because Ronaldo and André Silva are incompatible (new myth), some years ago they played together in the national team and the output of both of them was great.
Our team is very static as a whole, we generally play badly and that is impressive with the players we have and this affects all of them, Ronaldo included.
Also please note that this defensive style is not a recent thing, in fact we always were defensively minded first since 2004.
2006 WC? 2010 WC? 2012 Euro? 2016 WC?
Basically we stay behind and hope the many talents we have can solve the problem, we have no real offensive process.