World Cup 2026: Is Portugal a better team without Cristiano Ronaldo?

It was so friendly that it could easily slip from memory.

In the opening game of the season against Kazakhstan, who recently joined UEFA, the match took place in front of a sell-out crowd of just 8,000 fans and on a pitch so dilapidated that the grass had to be painted to improve its appearance.

And yet, that narrow 1-0 victory over Chavez in northern Portugal never faded.

This is because 20 August 2003 was the day when Cristiano Ronaldo’s story began with the Portugal national team senior.

It would be a stretch at that point to expect the boy from Madeira to make his World Cup debut three years later, and to predict a record sixth World Cup appearance in 2026, along with Argentina’s Lionel Messi and Mexico’s Guillermo Ochoa, is completely unrealistic.

But Ronaldo – the all-time leading scorer in international football with 143 goals – reinvented Portuguese football, changing its mentality like no player before him and, most importantly, redefining what an entire nation believed in.

“We are a small country that rarely has a global impact outside of football,” Joao Arroso, who has worked with the forward in both Sporting and the national team, told BBC Sport.

“Cristiano allows our small country to be known worldwide for something great – because of all the positive things he stands for.”

In his previous five World Cups, the superstar, now 41, has always carried an untouchable status. It will be no different this summer, even if scrutiny has intensified back home around his role from Qatar 2022 onwards.

For a long time, openly questioning Ronaldo’s place in the team seemed almost treasonous. no more

“He doesn’t play to win, he plays to be the main figure,” argued Antonio Simos, a member of the Portugal team that finished third in the 1966 World Cup.

“Do you realize that’s the opposite of Eusebio? Let’s call a spade a spade. I have nothing against him. I can still see, I can still hear and I can still think. But I cannot escape the reality of reality.”

Portugal coach Roberto Martinez dismissed the controversy surrounding Ronaldo as ‘elevator talk’.

Whenever Martinez is asked about the five-time Ballon d’Or winner, he has pointed to the same statistic in all his recent interviews – 25 goals in his last 31 matches for the Selecao.

“We are talking about the greatest player of all time. He is here because he is still performing at a very high level, not because of what he achieved in the past,” Martinez explained.

After scoring in each of his five World Cups, Ronaldo will have another chance to answer critics on the field.

The Al-Nasr man has eight World Cup goals to his name, one short of Eusebio’s Portuguese record, but the ultimate prize is clear: helping Portugal lift the trophy for the first time.