Cristiano Ronaldo has spent two decades making football about himself. At the 2026 World Cup, Portugal need him to do the opposite. That tension is the defining story of their tournament.
The fitness questions are real. The physical profile that made him the most complete attacker of his generation has narrowed. What remains is still considerable — aerial threat, set-piece danger, the ability to conjure a moment from nothing — but the all-surface, all-phase forward is gone. Any manager building Portugal honestly has to account for that gap.
What He Still Offers
Roberto Martínez has consistently built Portugal's attack around Ronaldo's presence rather than his movement. That is a tactical choice with a logic to it. Ronaldo draws defensive attention. He holds lines. He punishes aerial deliveries and wins penalties. In a tournament format where knockout games tighten and margins shrink, those contributions are not trivial.
The problem is the cost. Playing a forward who covers limited ground in a side that needs width, transitions and pressing compactness is a structural compromise. Every time Portugal defend with ten men, the question resurfaces.
The Emotional Arithmetic
The counterargument is harder to quantify but harder to dismiss. Portugal with Ronaldo in the starting eleven carry a psychological weight that affects opponents. That is not sentiment — it is observable. Defenders make different decisions when he is on the pitch. Managers game-plan differently. That distortion has value.
What it cannot do is substitute for collective quality in extended knockout football. Portugal have the squad depth — Vitinha, Bruno Fernandes, Rafael Leão — to threaten any side without leaning on a single figure. Whether Martínez is willing to make that shift, or whether the political reality of managing Ronaldo makes it impossible, is the real question.
He will almost certainly play. He will almost certainly produce at least one moment that silences the debate for a week. And then the debate will return, because it always does.
The last dance framing flatters everyone involved. The harder framing: Portugal are a better side than their best player right now, and they have to find a way to use both truths.