Portugal never fails, in my bets I always think of them, betting positively on their outcome of the match, it is incredible however how Cristiano Ronaldo is still present despite his age and continues to amaze everyone with excellent football
Portugal will surely remember Ronaldo's contribution for a long time and future generations will surely be proud of Ronaldo no matter how old the history. Ronaldo may not have won any World Cup trophy for Portugal but what he alone has done for Portugal no star of any other country could have done for any other country. Ronaldo is old enough but he is ready to give himself to the needs of the team and still when he steps on the field for Portugal, it is seen that he is trying his best to perform well for his team. A big tournament like the World Cup usually requires a good performance from everyone but Ronaldo failed in that aspect because his team does not have quality players.
While Portugal is a great football nation and they will end up being good in the future as well, I do not think they will be as good as they have been in the last fifteen or so years for a long long time.
There aren't any players like Ronaldo, not at Portugal, not at any other team in the world and this means Portugal will miss Ronaldo's contribution to the team without a doubt. With him, they had someone who could score easily, this dude is literally the highest goal scorer of all time, Pele and his family is making up numbers but Ronaldo is the highest scorer, while I do agree if Messi wants to keep going until after Ronaldo, because of the age gap, there is a possibility Messi could take that spot, right now Ronaldo is godly when he is playing and even at 40 years old he is great.
Portugal will not have someone like him, when he retires, he will not be replaced by anyone even remotely as good as him, and this will make Portugal a worse team for a long time until they find another talent maybe closer to him.
C'mon, let's be frank. Yes, Ronaldo is amazing but not quite right now, actually. Portugal will miss old Ronaldo, not current one because it's clear that current one doesn't perform well and as I see, his teammates also refuse to give him the ball most of the time.
By the way, to my mind, World Cup means nothing for an athlete. If an athlete plays in a trush team, they can't win a World Cup because football is a game of 11 people, not 1. One person can't beat 11, even if he is the best.
I also don't like the idea of comparing Pele and his achievements to Ronaldo or Messi because football was very different during Pele's time. Football wasn't competitive sport as it is today. Now, footballers have to be top athletes with top talent to be competitive while years ago the bus driver was playing in club's defence