Rationally, Fernando Santos has no alternative in any respect to make.
In the group section of the World Cup, his Portugal workforce regarded hesitant, cumbersome, ever so barely disjointed. In the spherical of 16, all the things got here collectively. Against Switzerland, Portugal was fluent, imaginative, devastating.
The distinction, in fact, was that Santos had finished the unthinkable: He had relegated Cristiano Ronaldo — essentially the most celebrated participant in his nation’s historical past, who was taking part in in his farewell match — to the ranks of the substitutes. Ronaldo had not taken the information with none quibble: Called into Santos’s workplace, Ronaldo requested his supervisor whether or not he was certain it was the precise transfer. “Do you really think that’s a good idea?” Ronaldo mentioned, in Santos’s telling. The coach didn’t specify whether or not the emphasis was on the “really” or on the “good.”
As it turned out, in fact, it was a good suggestion. An extraordinarily good one. Portugal beat Switzerland, 6-1. Ronaldo’s direct substitute, the unheralded Gonçalo Ramos, scored a hat trick, as if to underline the purpose. It was not simply that Portugal appeared free with out Ronaldo. It was that the workforce, eventually, made sense with out him.
Going into Portugal’s quarterfinal towards Morocco on Saturday, then, it’s arduous to think about Santos going again on his resolution and reinstating Ronaldo to the workforce. He has made the most important name he might make, in spite of everything; he has already taken the danger, ridden the slings and arrows of criticism, gambled that he can retain the 37-year-old Ronaldo’s religion even when he feels his ego has been pricked. Why make that almost all painful of breaks solely to retrace your steps a couple of days later?
That interpretation, although, underestimates not solely how a lot affect Ronaldo has on this Portuguese squad — a considerable portion of which is younger sufficient to treat him much less as a peer and extra as a hero — however, extra necessary, the standing he has in Portugal.
Polls in Portugal over the previous few days have advised that Santos has public assist, that there isn’t any deafening clamor for Ronaldo to be reinstated. But he’s a nationwide icon, nearly definitely essentially the most well-known individual within the nation’s historical past, simply forward of Vasco da Gama and Nelly Furtado.
Dropping him, in fact, is a substantial gamble. And ought to Portugal make it by means of the quarterfinal, the stress to incorporate him will solely develop. Before the spherical of 16, Santos made the most important name of his profession. He could but have three calls of even better scale awaiting him.
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