Cristiano Ronaldo: the worst Portugal player at the Qatar World Cup 2022
The ex-Manchester United forward leaves the World Cup as the worst-rated player of the entire Portuguese squad, according to SofaScore.
After having started on the substitute bench for two consecutive games, in the Round of 16 against Switzerland and the Quarter-final against Morocco, Cristiano Ronaldo ended the Qatar 2022 World Cup as the player with the lowest rating of the entire Portuguese National Team, according to data from SofaScore.
In a World Cup tournament in which he arrived with questions surrounding him regarding the first half of the season in England, speculation about a frosty relationship with Bruno Fernandes and having ended his time with the Red Devils after a strange interview with Piers Morgan, the number ‘7′ did not have the World Cup that many might have expected.
Ronaldo’s tournament began with a penalty scored in the first game, a crazy 3-2 win against Ghana. After that came a 2-0 victory against Uruguay, in which Cristiano Ronaldo came within a hair’s width of scoring, but it ended up being Bruno Fernandes getting a double.
The last match of the group stage saw them lose against South Korea, where the Portuguese legend started but left the field without scoring after minute 65, kicking off the first of the arguments with manager, Fernando Santos. After the manager had signalled the change, Ronaldo reportedly replied: “You’re in a hell of a hurry to replace me!”.
In the first knockout round of the tournament, substitutions arrived that further annoyed the player, as the Portuguese manager left him out of the eleven in the thunderous win against the Swiss (6-1) and the subsequent loss against the Moroccans. The data shows that he leaves the World Cup with 1 goal scored in 291 minutes, 4 key passes, 3 big chances missed, 1 mistake that ended in an opposition goal and a overall rating of 6.46.
Cristiano leaves the World Cup without scoring in knockout rounds
At 37 years old, it seems very difficult for him to go to the 2026 World Cup in North America (he will be 41 years old), so Qatar 2022 is expected to have been the last World Cup tournament of his career. Although Portugal played for third place in Germany 2006 - Ronaldo’s best result - he failed to score in the knockout rounds; in South Africa 2010, Portugal lost 1-0 against Spain in the Round of 16; in Brazil 2014 they exited in the groups, Russia 2018 saw him leave goalless and now Qatar 2022 has once again turned into a disappointment for CR7.