Coach Roberto Martinez surprisingly benched Cristiano Ronaldo, but the 39-year-old star still shone in time when he entered the field in the second half and scored the decisive goal to help Portugal beat Scotland 2-1 on September 9.
” Ronaldo ‘s current form shows that he is ready to aim for the 2026 World Cup ,” said AS (Spain). The 39-year-old has now scored a total of 6 goals in 6 matches for both club and country, and has 2 assists at the beginning of the 2024-2025 season.
Ronaldo scores regularly and is still an extremely important factor in the Portuguese national team.
Ronaldo’s goals for Portugal in the 2-1 wins over Croatia and Scotland in the UEFA Nations League were also his 900th and 901st career goals.
In addition, these goals also helped Ronaldo increase his national team scoring record to 132 goals after 214 matches. Ronaldo is currently the player with the most goals in the history of the Portuguese team, far surpassing the second-placed Pauleta with 47 goals and the legendary Eusebio with 41 goals.
“Two games, two wins. Thanks for the support, let’s go Portugal!”, Ronaldo wrote on his social media account X (formerly Twitter). This shows that this famous player is still making important contributions to the national team and coach Roberto Martinez was right to keep faith in him.
The special thing about the match where Portugal defeated Scotland at Estadio da Luz in Lisbon was that coach Roberto Martinez surprisingly left Ronaldo on the bench after starting and playing almost the entire 90 minutes in the match against Croatia.
Ronaldo was only brought on at the beginning of the second half to replace Pedro Neto. Before that, the Portuguese team’s attack was led by Rafael Leao and Diogo Jota with Bruno Fernandes supporting the back line.
Portugal team shows they still need Ronaldo
After McTominay unexpectedly opened the score 1-0 for the Scottish team in the 7th minute, it was not until the second half that Ronaldo’s presence helped the Portuguese team’s attack to improve again before Bruno Fernandes equalized 1-1 in the 54th minute. At the end of the match, Ronaldo showed his mettle and importance when he chose the right position to confirm Nuno Mendes’ pass, scoring the decisive goal to bring victory to the home team with a score of 2-1.
“The consecutive goals still show Ronaldo’s importance in the Portuguese team’s play, he is ready to aim for the 2026 World Cup,” AS emphasized . However, Ronaldo has not yet mentioned this possibility, when determining that this is the time to enjoy football and wait and see what happens next.