{"id":190514,"date":"2024-06-18T18:12:17","date_gmt":"2024-06-18T18:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2024\/06\/18\/roberto-martinez-explains-why-cristiano-ronaldo-is-still-in-portugal-squad-aged-39\/"},"modified":"2024-06-18T18:12:17","modified_gmt":"2024-06-18T18:12:17","slug":"roberto-martinez-explains-why-cristiano-ronaldo-is-still-in-portugal-squad-aged-39","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2024\/06\/18\/roberto-martinez-explains-why-cristiano-ronaldo-is-still-in-portugal-squad-aged-39\/","title":{"rendered":"Roberto Martinez explains why Cristiano Ronaldo is still in Portugal squad aged 39 \u2013"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Roberto Martinez says that Cristiano Ronaldo is in Portugal\u2019s Euro 2024 squad \u2018on merit\u2019 after being dropped at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The former Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus forward, who now plays for Al Nassr in Saudi Arabia, is preparing to play in his sixth European Championship, with Portugal getting their campaign underway against Czechia on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n<p>Ronaldo was benched towards the end of Portugal\u2019s run at the 2022 World Cup, under previous head coach Fernando Santos, coming on as a substitute in both the round of 16 and quarter-finals.<\/p>\n<p>But Martinez views Ronaldo as an important asset in the\u00a0Portugal\u00a0squad, and has revealed to reporters why he still believes in the 39-year-old.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCristiano is in the national team on merit. Nobody gets into the national team by just having a name,\u201d Martinez said. \u201cCristiano scored 50 goals in 51 games, consistent with his club in his league, and he scored nine goals in our qualification rounds.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/01j0nf0877nqxfjtkysp.jpg\" alt=\"Roberto Martinez\" title=\"Roberto Martinez\"\/><\/figure>\n<p>Martinez has explained Ronaldo\u2019s involvement in the squad \/ Carlos Rodrigues\/GettyImages<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s a goal scorer and for us he\u2019s someone who can make that final move. He can stretch defences and open spaces. Over the years he has changed his way of playing slightly, but I can only say that Cristiano is in the national team on merit and the numbers are there to back that up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ronaldo\u2019s lack of appearances at the World Cup prompted rumours of his retirement from international football \u2013 particularly as Portugal have an exceptionally young and talented squad \u2013 but he is in a forward pool that also contains Goncalo Ramos, Joao Felix, Rafael Leao, Diogo Jota, Pedro Neto and Francisco Conceicao.<\/p>\n<p>The only player to score at five consecutive European Championships, Ronaldo has more goals than any other individual in the history of the competition. 14 times he has found the back of the net for Portugal,\u00a0famously leading his country to 2016 success\u00a0despite picking up an injury in the final.<\/p>\n<p>Besides Czechia, Turkey and Georgia are the two other countries that comprise Group F at\u00a0Euro 2024.<\/p>\n<p><!-- CONTENT END 1 --><\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Roberto Martinez says that Cristiano Ronaldo is in Portugal\u2019s Euro 2024 squad \u2018on merit\u2019 after being dropped at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The former Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus forward, who now plays for Al Nassr in Saudi Arabia, is preparing to play in his sixth European Championship, with Portugal getting their [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":190515,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-190514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Roberto Martinez explains why Cristiano Ronaldo is still in Portugal squad aged 39 \u2013 - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2024\/06\/18\/roberto-martinez-explains-why-cristiano-ronaldo-is-still-in-portugal-squad-aged-39\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Roberto Martinez explains why Cristiano Ronaldo is still in Portugal squad aged 39 \u2013 - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Roberto Martinez says that Cristiano Ronaldo is in Portugal\u2019s Euro 2024 squad \u2018on merit\u2019 after being dropped at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. 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