Does anyone know why Cristiano Ronaldo started all Portugal matches while he's clearly struggling? I've heard theories about the federation making more money with sponsors if he plays, is this true?
could be a whole lot of reasons: he's still the symbol of this Portugal team, after all. He must have a say in the locker rooms (and why shouldn't he, considering); Martinez must think of him as the glue that keeps the squad together (same reason why he must have brought Pepe along, probably). And yeah, probably sponsors too.
We had plenty of players play 2 hours of football yesterday and he really didn’t do many subs or did them late. And what is worst is that the same happened a few days ago with the same group of players.
He really sucks with subs, and tends to stick with the one single tactical schema even if it keeps failing.
As an example, he kept the 3-man defense in Belgium while everyone was suggesting to try a 4-man version, especially as our defenders were our weak point.
Also, he kept starting with Hazard even when he was clearly not fit, not giving their chances to other midfielders.
Pepe did much better performance, and Jota might have been a better starter for Portugal. CR as a super sub (think Muller for Germany) could have been an option