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Bill Connelly
Multiple Authors
HOUSTON — Portugal coach Roberto Martinez brushed aside concerns, about his team and about star Cristiano Ronaldo’s goal-scoring drought in major competitions, following Portugal’s frustrating 1-1 draw with Congo DR on Wednesday at NRG Stadium.
Ronaldo was held scoreless for the fifth straight World Cup match and the 10th consecutive game in major competitions, including World Cups and European championships.
He hasn’t scored a non-penalty goal in a major competition since June 19, 2021, and despite his playing nearly every minute, Portugal have scored just one goal in their past four matches in major competitions.
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– Connelly: Portugal have a Ronaldo problem (again) after Congo DR draw
Ronaldo played all 90 minutes on Wednesday despite generating just three shot attempts and putting none on goal. It was the sixth time the Al Nassr striker finished without a shot on target at a World Cup.
As Martinez searched for an answer, substituting Ronaldo evidently wasn’t one of the options.
“It makes no sense to get the best goal scorer in world football out in a game that you need goals,” he said.
Ronaldo is Portugal’s leading career scorer, with 143 goals in his national team’s shirt. He also became only the second person to appear in six World Cups, following Argentina’s Lionel Messi, who did the same thing on Tuesday evening. But his quest to move out of a tie with Messi, who had a hat trick on Tuesday, by becoming the first player to score in a sixth tournament fell short.
Martinez primarily attributed Portugal’s problems against Congo DR to a lack of initiative after João Neves’ early goal put them ahead. Neves scored in the sixth minute, but Portugal managed just six more shot attempts afterward.
“We started very, very well,” Martinez said, “our level, our control, the way we got into the penalty area. Scoring the goal — which is normally a moment when the emotion of scoring helps you keep control of the match and try to score a second goal — had the opposite effect.
“Instead, it made us want to keep possession of the ball. We gave Congo the opportunity to reorganize their defensive structure and set up their counterattacks, and we lost a lot of depth. That helped Congo.”
Congo DR, who were playing at the World Cup for the first time in 52 years, became the second African nation to make a strong start in the tournament against European competition, following Cape Verde’s 0-0 draw with Spain on Monday.
And Martinez insisted there was no need to panic after one game.
“The World Cup is a tournament where these things happen,” he said. “Argentina lost to Saudi Arabia [in 2022] and then went on to win the World Cup. In 2010, Spain lost to Switzerland and then won the World Cup. Those weren’t performances that looked like those of eventual champions, but that’s part of the process.
“What we’re talking about here is the first match of a World Cup,” Martinez emphasized. “Today, after we scored the opening goal, those emotions had a negative effect on our performance. We stopped taking risks, we stopped looking for space, we stopped reaching the final third. That was more a matter of emotion than of tactics or technique. It happens. It’s part of the World Cup. Now we evaluate it and improve for the second match.”
Portugal will next play Uzbekistan on Tuesday in Houston.
The Associated Press and ESPN Research contributed to this report.
