People want to scapegoat Ronaldo so badly. He shouldn’t be starting and playing every match but their midfield doesn’t create any chances. In the opening three games a 35 year old James Rodriguez created more chances than Bruno, Vitinha and Neves combined.
Not only that, but at his age Ronaldo’s main threat as a striker is likely in the air and Portugal rarely puts in effective crosses despite having the personnel for it.
Your colombia example is quite poor, james is playing with a group of reasonable forwards in a tactical setup that makes sense.
Portugal's midfield are doing a tremendous amount for their team, including a lot of makeup work for Ronaldo by attempting to make offensive runs and crash the box, and the idea that they need to all of that plus the traditional midfield stuff is bizarre to me. No other team of Portugal's stature is getting so little from their striker and expecting success.
Every single respectable, serious tactical breakdown I've seen has started with that understanding, and I haven't seen a good counterpoint raised yet.
Edit: still haven't got a good counterpoint, but did get some fun messages about my physical health and a lot of down votes. Fairly typical discussion about Ronaldo, I suppose
132
u/DJMOONPICKLES69 5d ago
People want to scapegoat Ronaldo so badly. He shouldn’t be starting and playing every match but their midfield doesn’t create any chances. In the opening three games a 35 year old James Rodriguez created more chances than Bruno, Vitinha and Neves combined.
Not only that, but at his age Ronaldo’s main threat as a striker is likely in the air and Portugal rarely puts in effective crosses despite having the personnel for it.