The Portugal national team arrived at the 2026 World Cup with legitimate expectations. They have one of the deepest rosters in the tournament. They have a manager in Roberto Martinez who knows how to organize a side. And they have Bruno Fernandes, fresh off a monster season where he swept Premier League Player of the Year and FWA Footballer of the Year honors. But none of that matters right now, because the story in camp is about somebody else entirely.
It started with a disappointing 1-1 draw against Congo in the opening group stage game. Cristiano Ronaldo played the full 90 minutes, put up three shots and zero on target, and looked every bit like a 41-year-old who maybe should not be doing that anymore. Thierry Henry called him selfish on air. Chris Sutton called Martinez an embarrassment for keeping him on the field. The game passed Ronaldo by, Sutton said, and the manager is scared to bench him. That is not the kind of criticism you want flying around before a must-win match against Uzbekistan.
The social media backlash got personal
Fans did what fans do. They flooded the Instagram and Twitter accounts of Portuguese players with complaints. Joao Neves, Vitinha, Joao Pedro, even Fernandes himself got dragged into it. Neves scored against Congo, by the way, and still caught heat for saying something perfectly reasonable after the game. He said Ronaldo is no different from any other player in the squad at this point. Just another guy here to help. He meant it as a compliment to the team. But Ronaldo’s fan army took it as disrespect.
Then Ronaldo’s sister Katia Aveiro started posting. That never calms anything down. She added her voice to the noise, and suddenly you have a full-blown social media war on top of a tense team situation.
A journalist says it could become a civil war
Portuguese journalist Vitor Pinto spoke to The Daily Mail and laid it out pretty bluntly. He said the risk of a civil war inside the team is real. But he also pushed back on the idea that teammates are boycotting Ronaldo on purpose. He said there was no organized boycott, which is probably worth emphasizing because conspiracy theories have been flying around. What actually happened, according to Pinto, is that Portugal did not communicate well with their center-forward and did not have a strategy where Ronaldo created space for others to make runs. That is a tactical problem, not a mutiny.
Still. When the whole world is watching and your captain is the most famous athlete on the planet, a tactical problem becomes a national crisis real fast.
Ronaldo’s swan song is not going to plan
This was supposed to be Ronaldo’s last World Cup. Maybe his last meaningful tournament period. He is still the all-time leading scorer in men’s international soccer. Nobody is taking that away from him. But the game has changed. Portugal has younger, faster options. And the clock is ticking.
Portugal plays Uzbekistan on Tuesday June 23. A loss would be catastrophic. A draw might not be enough either. They need to win to keep knockout stage hopes alive. And the smartest move might be building the attack around Fernandes, letting him pull the strings, and finding a way to manage the Ronaldo situation without letting it consume the whole team.
The talent is there. The egos are the problem. And in a tournament this tight, that can sink you before the group stage even ends.
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