teams like Germany and Spain even though I had a stellar team, were let down by the decisions of their coaches. Specially Luis Enrique. I have to say that he left out so many talented players from the Spain squad like Sergio Ramos and Thiago Alcântara which is very unfortunate.
I think he also gave Pedri a more defensive role than he is used to. I think Germany also could have gotten better players on the pitch. So the AFC teams have really played well which I did not expect. And I am not sure what to say about the Latin American teams as the early departure of Brazil was not what I expected.
When you have a limited amount of players you can pick, you don't pick the best 26 players of that nation, you pick the best of certain positions. Which means if Ramos is overall more talented than some midfield they picked, but they needed that midfield player and yet had better defenders than Ramos, then you do it that way.
Same was said about Brazil and Firminho for example, if he was there then he could have scored goals or passed to Neymar better and they would have been still playing, but because he wasn't there and picked, and even during the games substitions were either too late or bad, they lost. So it's not an easy decision, it is quite difficult and stressful for managers too.
Well if they are right, according to what I saw with Spain, it was crazy not to take Lucas or Sergio Ramos just because Luis Enrique still lives off a silly rivalry between Real Madrid and Barcelona, apart from being more pending to make live presentations on Twitch instead of dedicating himself to doing his job well, but hey, there are the results they obtained, a Europa League Team representing an entire country is not worthy of winning World Cups, there are many stars in the other countries of a much higher level than if they were called.
With regard to Germany, I think things did not turn out the way they wanted, perhaps the strategies they had were not the most correct, I think there was a great need to do things better, and well, not to mention Portugal, a technical director that limits a star is something I will never understand, why don't they follow the example of Croatia??? Have they left Modric on the bench in the most important matches? but Modric is 37 years old, and in Argentina? They have left Messi on the bench? No, because they are their best weapons and they know that those players like this are going through a bad time, they can define a game, very badly for the technical directors.
Cristiano Ronaldo will NOT return home from the World Cup on Sunday... with the free agent among 10 Portugal players who will spend time with their families in Qatar instead of flying back to Lisbon after shock Morocco defeatThen after being dropped against Switzerland in the last 16 he was seen walking off the pitch on his own whilst his team-mates continued to celebrate, and against Morocco he stormed off the pitch at the final whistle.
In being benched against Switzerland, Ronaldo failed to start a major tournament knockout match for the first time since Euro 2008.
Source:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-11525815/Cristiano-Ronaldo-NOT-return-home-Fernando-Santos-rest-national-team-today.html