A legendary football player blew up in Denmark’s Copenhagen as a Jorge Jesus problem. Peel back the headlines about Cristiano Ronaldo storming off to his private jet on Wednesday.
A pattern shows Ronaldo gets along fine with non-Portuguese coaches, but the Portuguese ones are a different story almost every time.
Debuted back in August 2003 Ronaldo has gone through six national team coaches includes Carlos Queiroz, Paulo Bento, Fernando Santos, Luiz Felipe Scolari, Roberto Martínez, and now Jesus.
Among them, Scolari and Martínez were the only two foreign managers, both avoiding any serious blow-up with CR7.
The other four being all Portuguese hit some kind of breaking point, whether it was over tactics, playing time, or just who was really in charge.
The clearest echo of this week comes from Qatar, 2022. As per ESPN, Fernando Santos, who had coached Ronaldo for eight years by that time, dropped him for the round-of-16 game against Switzerland after the 41-year-old reacted furiously to being subbed off against South Korea.
“Have I seen the images? I didn’t like it,” Santos told reporters. His replacement, Gonçalo Ramos, scored a hat trick in a 6-1 win that night, he added.
Ronaldo ended up in tears when Portugal got knocked out by Morocco in the quarterfinal of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, having come off the bench but barely making a dent.
When coach benches Ronaldo, the team performs better without him and the fallout spirals.
Portugal beat Denmark 4-2 on Thursday with Ronaldo nowhere near the pitch, keeping what ESPN called their perfect record in this Nations League run going, a scoreline that lines up almost too neatly with the Switzerland result from three years ago.
According to El Chiringuito and journalist Edu Aguirre, Jesus privately apologised to Ronaldo on Tuesday night in a meeting including Portuguese federation president Pedro Proença for leaving him to warm up around 30 mins during the Norway game.
Aguirre also claimed that Jesus didn’t just apologise quietly but actually promised to admit the mistake publicly. “That was Jorge Jesus’ promise to Cristiano, Aguirre said, and that’s apparently the real reason Ronaldo loses it.
Two days later, Jesus stood in front of cameras and did the exact opposite, asserting absolute control, making it unmistakably clear Ronaldo would have zero say over tactics or selection going forward.
“There’s nothing that should stop the group from being with me,” the Portuguese coach said after beating Denmark. Adding that once Portugal gets home, “the people will fight at the Dragao stadium.”
Vitinha scoring against Denmark gave his coach a quiet vote of confidence too, saying it was simply the work of the coach when asked why the team had clicked.
According to AP, Portuguese prime minister Luís Montenegro personally spoke with Ronaldo, Jesus and Proença to cool things down, which tells you something about how much Ronaldo still matters to the country’s public life even now.
Globo Esporte notes both Queiroz and Bento were let go during international breaks while Ronaldo was injured, and Santos left on his own terms after Qatar.
Former coach’s bond with Ronaldo still intact despite the benching drama. So the common thread isn’t really any one coach or any one personality clash.
A 23-year pattern, spanning 234 caps and 146 goals, of a generational player hitting a wall specifically with Portuguese coaches, almost always triggered by a tactical call he didn’t agree with.
“I tell his side of the story soon enough,” Ronaldo said in a social media video.
Jesus, for his part, says he won’t get into it further until after Sunday’s game against Norway.
Based on Thursday’s scoreline, Portugal seems to be managing fine without their captain.
