Martinez gone.
Now take Ronaldo with you.
Now take Ronaldo with you.
Portugal Discussion | Roberto Martinez resigns
- Thread starter Samid
- Start date
So what's going to be the next big role he somehow attains? Brazil? Germany?
The man must have legendary interview skills, or has to be on some high masonic, Illuminati level of clout. Unbelievable how he somehow manages to nab these big jobs.
The man must have legendary interview skills, or has to be on some high masonic, Illuminati level of clout. Unbelievable how he somehow manages to nab these big jobs.
Germans would never touch him.
I thought the same thing about the Belgians and Portuguese. He's the Pete Davidson of football coaches.
Joke manager. Waste of a tremendous squad of players.
Again.
Again.
Wow. A silver lining, eh! And Cristiano retiring from International football too, right? Portugal might actually fancy the next Euros.
You’re literally proving my point. Ronaldo was still top then yet Bruno wasn’t any better.
He started against Spain but was woeful so was subsequently dropped. Also, what about Euro 2021?
Hmm, maybe it's because they play different positions and one had to play with a past-it traffic cone who bogged down every attack?
Again, why are you continuing to try to distract from the obvious reality that Ronaldo is a liability in 2026? No one is talking about older tournaments and it's not some sort of gotcha if individuals underperformed in completely different contexts.
He absolutely stinks and is a liability. Dez homens e uma estátua have no chance of winning
Ronaldo will be playing at Euro 2028.
Championship title with Swansea and then a FA Cup win with Wigan(Got relegated in the same season). Plus the consensus post Belgium was that he had failed and misused a "golden generation". Yet lands one of european top national jobs.
I do wonder if in a few years time we might see there was maybe none footballing reasons for why he got the gig. It's the only thing that would make sense.
I wouldn't actually rule him out from trying to play in the next WC, especially considering Portugal is one of the co-hosts.
Do you genuinely believe that Ronaldo was the reason the likes of Bruno, Vitinha and co. played like absolute bums at World Cup 2026? I just wanna know how much I should keep engaging with this.
That was Brendon.
With that midfield, it was shocking how poor Portugal were. I have no rooting interest, but even I was growing infuriated watching the sloppy and slow build up after they went down 1 nil in injury time.
If your team kept getting a red card every single match and had to play with 10 vs 11, the first fix is to stop fecking getting red cards.
It's the same exact thing with Ronaldo. He is a complete non-entity in both defensive and buildup phases. Other top forwards who don't do much defensively offer threat in behind and/or in transition like Mbappe, Vinicius, Haaland, etc - Ronaldo does exactly the opposite. So many potential opportunities went wanting because he is either offside or is trailing the play occupying the exact space that the attacking midfielder should be in and therefore not putting pressure on the defense.
Did the other Portuguese players cover themselves in glory? Of course not - but they are playing with a colossal handicap and they very very obviously aren't the single biggest and easiest problem for Portugal to resolve.
Portugal had to play laboured, slow, un-incisive football to accommodate one man's fragile ego. They couldn't play risky passes because A) there's no target because Ronaldo needs a walker to move around at this point and is positionally horrendous and B) the team is vulnerable in transition because 10 players are doing the work of 11. Obviously this is mostly down to Martinez and his dogmatic groveling to Homelander's ego but the single root of all the seleção's issues is Ronaldo.
Incredible how so many people miss this. Of course the rest of the team will play like shit when he's on the pitch - his presence (or lack thereof, to be precise) is an enormous handicap to everyone else!
The thing about this is that some of it is obviously true. He’s no longer able to provide a lot of things that a modern striker can provide but it’s still a very lazy and extreme analysis to say he is “the single root” of Portugal’s issues.
That would mean he’s the reason Bruno can’t break lines or create chances or why Vitinha looked completely flat. Even if Gonçalo Ramos was on the pitch instead of him, these players wouldn’t suddenly look completely different from what they have shown.
It's incredible when you think this thread was created for Qatar 2022, and the first page is full of people saying the same thing as above!
The second post in this thread, from almost four years ago!
The FA really watched him waste Belgium's finest squad and said yeah we'll have some of that...The execs should walk.
Well, they were in somewhat of a bind. The better the coach they tried appointing, the more likely his first move would have been to bin Ronaldo...And we can't have that, can we?
To be fair, they did try to go for Mourinho, but he decided to stay at Roma. I feel Mourinho would have had no issues removing Ronaldo.
A group of great players, but a poor team. That's on the manager
The first obvious fix was to replace the statue up front so you're playing with 11 men. This alone shows the manager either lacks authority or is clueless.
The first obvious fix was to replace the statue up front so you're playing with 11 men. This alone shows the manager either lacks authority or is clueless.
Wasted Belgium very good squad and then almost Great Portuguese Squad.
The guy is a literal bald fraud.
He announced he was leaving before they had even kicked a ball. The guy's a bum. He knew he was going to fail and was getting in front of it.
Might as well appoint Grok the coach.
How you have a midfield of Bruno, literally the most creative player in world football, Vitinha and Neves and produce what we saw this tournament is... criminal negligence.
Ronaldo would also be a literal bald fraud if he wasn't getting relentless work done to pretend he's not an old man.
He announced he was leaving before they had even kicked a ball. The guy's a bum. He knew he was going to fail and was getting in front of it.
Might as well appoint Grok the coach.
How you have a midfield of Bruno, literally the most creative player in world football, Vitinha and Neves and produce what we saw this tournament is... criminal negligence.
Ronaldo would also be a literal bald fraud if he wasn't getting relentless work done to pretend he's not an old man.
We saw firsthand how bad Hojlund had us playing, and he was working harder than Ronaldo and he attempted to stretch the defense. Ronaldo was restricted to making runs inside a congested box and hoping the ball got to him. He provided nothing else in attack or defense. How can you create when a player is unable to to do anything other than that? Other strikers are helping their attacking teammates create a passing option for them to provide the assist, get assisted by their striker, or help them get a 2nd assist. And other midfielders have more options to build attacks around more mobile strikers via counter attacks. When everybody's options are already taken off the table you're basically telling your impact players to impact the game in a very specific way and that isn't going to always come off. That could be the difference between creating 3 chances vs 1 chance, which leads to a different fan perception of the player.
The whole team is affected by someone that limited physically.
Last edited:
Too negative, you gotta risk when you have this many creative players and players who can recover balls.
That Is the 3rd tournament Ronaldo has fecked them. Thank God they won in it 2016, otherwise he would play till his late 80s.
I feel like he's already managed them before
Two of the most talented teams and they served us a bore fest. How can you make a team with Bruno, Mendes, neves etc that toothless in attack?
Consistently play like you’re a man down.
Eder>Ronaldo
I bet 20/23 players would go on a strike. They already effectively did by refusing to pass him the ball most of the tournament but this time they would not even check in at the hotel.
Issue is this Portugal is very like England around 2004.
Vitinha, B Fernandes, Bernardo Silva, Joao Neves, Ruben Neves are all rather slow CMs with zero dribbling ability. Gerrard, Scholes, Lampard, Butt, Hargreaves were the same. First 5 better passers, last 5 more dynamic but in the end lacking something.
Joe Cole and Joao Felix as main winger/creative spark, while decent players, were obviously not enough as creators on the world stage.
They severely lacked a young Ronaldo and Nani on the wings to rip opponents apart with pace and flair. Old Ronaldo not being able to press, or even more detrimental, not being able to out speed opponents on the counter attack did them in. So many times this WC that the Portuguese players turned around instead of feeding Ronaldo on the counter, in that regard they were much worse off than England 2004.
He literally is the reason Bruno can't break lines - there's no target up front moving to get on the end of them! And there's no pressure on the defense because Ronaldo doesn't run anymore - so Bruno's space is totally congested.
Ramos at the bare minimum runs around a lot and occupies CBs. The bar is so unbelievably low for Portugal that a warm body who tries and stays onside would be a huge upgrade from what they are currently dealing with
Even if Ronaldo wasn't around I'm not sure Bruno is compatible with the way Vitinha/Neves play, the play styles are like oil and water. Maybe if you push Bruno away from the midfield and play him as a flase 9 it could work.