I personally think that Portugal is a very good team even without Ronaldo and that they don't depend only on him.
After all, in today's modern football, one player cannot influence the result much by himself and the strength of the team is much more important.
Do you remember when Portugal became European champions a few years ago?
Due to Ronaldo's injury, Portugal played almost the entire final match against France without Ronaldo and eventually won without him and became the European champion.
Ronaldo is playing really bad at the moment and I don't think it's very certain that he will play for Portugal in every game from the start, just because of his reputation.
Well balanced teams (such as Spain and Brazil) have their own advantage, but that doesn't mean that it will be impossible for individual based teams such as Portugal and Belgium to win. When a team is heavily dependent on one player (Ronaldo for Portugal, Erling Håland for Norway and Lukaku for Belgium), there are both advantages and disadvantages. The opposition defense can focus on a single player and if they manage to restrict him then it will get difficult for the other team to score goals.
I can partially agree with you. Everything really depends on the team and the game strategy of the coach. A good coach knows how to get the most out of his team, exploiting the team's best sides and covering the team's bad sides with additional solutions.
If the players can unite with their coach's vision and support the main player of the team, then it can work.
Ronaldo is not playing well in Manchester at the moment and it will be interesting to see how much he can help Portugal at the World Cup.
They are absolutely right, for me a good team is one that helps its stars to shine and above all to contribute so that they can reach the final, in the case of Portugal I have always realized that CR7 has thrown the team to his shoulders, I think that this time he will need all the help possible, because there are many things that lie in wait for him, many do not say so, but the pain that he has from losing his little son and I know that it affected him a lot, I think that's why from now on is when he really began his fall, it may be that for the World Cup in Qata things will turn out better for him, just like for the EURO of 2024 that they already told him that if he could play it, but everything is to be seen, maybe in the world changed for the better and could give pleasant surprises.
Being powerful and doing a good job doesn't necessarily go hand in hand and nobody should forget that. Corruption is a huge issue for an organization like the FIFA.
First the FIFA gives the World Cup to Qatar and now the Olympic Winter games have been given to Saudi Arabia. While this seems to be off-topic, it kind of is not. Guess what, the city where the Olympic Winter games are going to take place must even be built first. It doesn't exist yet. Anyone wants to guess how many people are going to die building a brand new mega city for some Winter games?
The whole world is all about money. I can only give bad guesses as to how much money someone like Blatter might be bunkering in places nobody ever found about.
People dying for building the venues in order for the world to have a great experience in front of the TV is many steps too far.
Money matters. As simple as that.
Saudi Arabia is the same country that is involved in a genocidal war against Houthis in Yemen. They have constantly bombed residential areas in Yemen, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths. And the FIFA, as well as the IOC has not taken any action against Saudi Arabia. Same with Qatar. Despite the deaths of more than 6,000 workers in constructing the stadiums for the FIFA World Cup, no action was taken by the sports body.
But both FIFA and IOC were quick to suspend Russia and disqualify the athletes when they launched the war against Ukraine. Why it this differentiation? Why the same rule that is applicable to Russia not applicable to Saudi Arabia and Qatar?
The question you raise is indeed an interesting one, but I believe that the FIFA knows there is no way to put pressure on the whole European continent with so many important soccer nations. Now that Russia started that war within Europe and the sanctions were implemented, all the events are much closer and on everyone's radar.
I fully agree with you and as I also implied before, it currently starts to become absurd. The World Cup in Qatar was crazy when I first heard it, and it still is. Giving the Winter Games to Saudi Arabia is again absurd. It feels like political power and money is trying to turn the world and its natural givens upside down. Winter Games in Saudi Arabia. Let's see whether the next Summer Games will take place in Alaska...
The worst of it all is obviously not that so much money is wasted, but that real people are killed, and as a secondary effect I could possibly also argue that it is a gigantic waste of money to build soccer stadiums in Qatar or the whole set up for the Winter Games in Saudi Arabia while there is still hunger in the world.
Yes, I see your point and you are right, but always for some reason it is about moving the path of sport away from everything political and from every act against humanity, however the games, the Qatar thing is something else, first of all the world is something that has always been given, an undial could not only establish bonds of union between countries but could be a reason to start establishing peace between countries, I know that the situation in the world is not so easy and that there are many things, many fights and fights of territories at the moment, be it for Russia, Ukraine and that in some way have taken it to Europe and it is also a problem in the world, because if a world war breaks out, we will all take it, so sometimes sport can unite, there is that slight possibility.
