Cristiano Ronaldo’s status as Portugal’s football saviour is coming into question ahead of the World Cup. The 37-year-old has seen his role change at Manchester United this season after falling down the pecking order under new head coach Erik ten Hag. With the World Cup in Qatar coming up, Ronaldo is facing an unusual situation by his own high standards.

As well as struggling for United, one of the Portugal’s biggest publications, A Bola, criticised the forward’s involvement for the national team by running the headline: ‘menos Ronaldo, mais Portugal’, which translates into ‘less Ronaldo, more Portugal’. That criticism led to an impassioned defence from his sister, Katia Aveiro, who threw her support behind Ronaldo with a lengthy post on Instagram where she said ‘Portugal spit on the plate they eat from’. Continue reading →