'The game passed him by': How the world reacted to Cristiano Ronaldo's World Cup nightmare

Feature

Robin Bairner | Chief Editor

Accredited football journalist and editor covering the game since 2006

All eyes were on Cristiano Ronaldo as he led Portugal into their opening 2026 World Cup game, from the Houston Stadium to the fan zone in Lisbon’s Terreiro do Paco.

Ronaldo had come under fire coming into the tournament after lacklustre performances in Portugal’s warm-up games against Chile and Nigeria, yet this was not enough to tempt manager Roberto Martinez into a change of plan.

When Portugal’s starting XI to take on DR Congo was named, there was the 41-year-old Manchester United and Real Madrid legend front and centre of the attack.

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Come full-time, with the Seleccao having had to settle for a 1-1 draw, fans shuffled out of the Lisbon fan park en masse in muted disappointment save for a small group of Congolese supporters who went viral thanks to their celebrations.

Ronaldo remained the focal point, having lived up to his pre-tournament billing as a legend past his best and out to enhance his personal statistics rather than the cause of his country.

It was the 10th major tournament game in succession in which the 41-year-old had failed to score - an unimaginable run for Ronaldo in his prime.

“Nothing was lacking,” he said after the match. “That’s football. Portugal could have won, but we also could have lost.”

‘The game passed Ronaldo by’

Critics have argued that Portugal were lacking an effective centre-forward.

Thierry Henry, France’s former record scorer, commented on Fox Sports after the game: “One thing that’s important, is that the team needs to score; not you need to score.”

Martinez, meanwhile, was defensive of his decision not to take Ronaldo off.

“It made no sense at all to take off Cristiano Ronaldo who is the best goalscorer in history off the field when we were looking for goals,” he claimed.

The call to replace Vitinha and not Ronaldo as Portugal sought a winner was slammed by former Chelsea and England striker Chris Sutton.

“That's embarrassing from Martinez. It might work but are we all watching a different game?” the BBC pundit said.

“He's scared to take him off. He's not the manager. Ronaldo may end up scoring the winner but the game has passed him by today.”

But while the Al-Nassr striker may receive special treatment from his coach, the DR Congo players were less concerned about treating him as a unique case.

Ngal’ayel Mukau explained after the game that there was no plan in place specifically to contain Ronaldo, telling TNT Sports Brasil: “We know he’s not the same as before. He’s a bit older now. But still, he’s one of the greatest… much respect to him.”

The reaction in Portugal

Ronaldo’s legacy means that he commands fierce loyalty among his fans, and even in Portugal, there are those who believe that he should be defended, even if the widely accepted worldview is that he is now holding his team back.

“There's talk about Ronaldo, but where was Bruno Fernandes? Who saw him during the game?” former Benfica president Gaspar Ramos commented in Record, adding that the performance was a “complete disappointment”.

Indeed, outright criticism of Ronaldo is tough to find in the media. A Bola’s front page on Thursday, the day after the game, was an image of the captain with his palm over his face, but its main opinion piece shied away from targeting ‘CR7’ and focused more on the management of the team.

“It's difficult to understand how a team with so much individual quality can produce so little,” it said.

“With so much play down the flanks, why did Ramos only enter the game in the 83rd minute?

“Martinez made changes, but the problem wasn't just individual. It's difficult to understand how he can be ‘satisfied with the attitude’ in a game where so little was played, so slowly, and where the team was so rarely able to disrupt the opponent's defensive structure.”

Instead, criticism comes indirectly from second-hand sources, with quotes based on how the foreign media has analysed the game.

Martinez as the head of the team has been criticised but Ronaldo remains bulletproof, for the moment, at least.

Ronaldo has become a figure of pity

This contrasts sharply to the international view of his performance against DR Congo.

The Independent described Portugal as being “ten men and a statue”.

In Italy, Gazzetta dello Sport went further. It wrote: “The game scenario was clear and predictable. In Martinez's Portugal, in Houston, there was an obvious problem: Cristiano Ronaldo. The Portuguese number 7, playing in his sixth World Cup, did not respond to Lionel Messi's hat-trick.”

Even in being sympathetic to Ronaldo’s cause, The Athletic admitted: “Ronaldo basically did nothing. It wasn’t even as if he was doing things badly, rather that he wasn’t doing them at all. He was a void, a theoretically corporeal being but one that might as well have been a wisp, a spirit of no substance.”

It’s telling that he has become a symbol of pity. Bild branded his performance as “heartbreaking” while AS lamented: “Cristiano doesn’t deserve this.”

Can Portugal win in spite of Ronaldo?

Martinez has such a group of talented players assembled that even spearheaded by Ronaldo, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that they could go on and lift the World Cup.

While the striker would see that as the crowning moment in his career, it’s already clear to observers that any success Portugal has at World Cup 2026 will be despite Ronaldo and not because of him.

Written by

Robin Bairner | Chief Editor

Robin Bairner is an eminent digital football journalist who has been writing about the sport for major global publishers since 2006, specialising in Ligue 1 and Scottish football. He has been chief editor of the FootballTransfers global edition since its launch in 2020. Previously Bairner had been a key member of the editorial team which helped Goal.com become the world’s biggest football website. He covered multiple major competitions as a correspondent for Goal including the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, where he had the opportunity to work in Fortaleza. Among his highlights of the competition was Brazil’s quarter-final victory over Colombia.

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