As the World Cup served up a feast of individual brilliance on Tuesday, Wednesday brought a starkly different flavour. While three of the game's moder...
As the World Cup served up a feast of individual brilliance on Tuesday, Wednesday brought a starkly different flavour. While three of the game's modern icons delivered moments of magic for their nations, one man, Cristiano Ronaldo, found himself grappling with a familiar foe: the low block. And for all his desire, his night ended in a draw with DR Congo that felt more like a defeat. The man who has built a career on rewriting the laws of expectation looked every inch a player struggling to find the rhythm that once seemed so effortless.The image was telling. Ronaldo dropping deep, arms aloft, demanding the ball in areas where he cannot hurt you. He is a predator who needs his meat served in the box, not scraps collected in the midfield. Yet here, against a disciplined and physical Congolese rearguard, he became a victim of his own hunger. There was a desperation to his play, a franticness that saw him shoot from distance when a pass was on, or hold the ball a heartbeat too long. It was the performance of a man who believes he must do it all, a belief that is both his greatest strength and, on nights like these, his most glaring weakness.Let's be blunt. You don't need a degree in tactical analysis to see what happened. Portugal, for all their possession, lacked the subtle knife. They had the ball, but they didn't have the incision. And when the ball did fall to their captain, the finishing was anything but clinical. One chance, a sharp turn and a clean strike, was saved. Another, a header from six yards, sailed over the bar. This was not the Ronaldo of Real Madrid or even the Ronaldo of the Euro 2016 final. This was a man carrying the weight of a nation and, perhaps, the weight of a legacy that he refuses to let settle.His teammates sparkled elsewhere on the global stage, delivering masterclasses in transitional play and tactical flexibility. But for Portugal, the puzzle remains. With Ronaldo in the side, the system is built around him. That is fine when he is firing, but when the engine misfires, the whole machine splutters. Can Fernando Santos adapt Can he ask his talisman to do the dirty work, to occupy defenders without needing the ball at his feet every second The answer, if this result is anything to go by, is that the team needs to score. And on Wednesday, the man who usually does the job was just another player on the pitch. Squeaky bum time, indeed.
