Away from the champion squad in France 2016

Today we see how Portugal faced Spain with an 11 that undoubtedly caused me curiosity, so I started thinking about the decline that the Portuguese team has had since it preceded the European Championship in France, 6 years ago, from that The 11 starter came out in the grand final, today only Pepe and Guerreiro repeated, footballers like Nano, Adrien Silva and Joao Mario are no longer part of the Portugal team, while their veteran captain, Cristiano Ronaldo, was sent to the bench by Fernando Santos, in search of giving rest to the Portuguese, the Portuguese lost captain to a genius orchestrated by Gavi and signed by Álvaro Morata, who has already entered the top 6 top scorers in the history of the Spanish team. In the second half, Portugal equalized, already with Cristiano Ronaldo on the field, however, Manchester United's number 7 seemed never to have entered the field of play and little could have influenced the result.

If there is a reality, it is that the Portugal of Fernando Santos lives from that giant flash that made them European champions, if we go back to that final, we remember the gigantic dominance of the French who could not go through Rui Patricio and who also met the posts (remembering the occasion of Gignac in the last minute that bounced off the post), already in the extension, Éder, who today lies forgotten in history, took from his right boot what is perhaps the most important shot in the history of Portugal, a shot that beat Hugo Lloris and that ultimately earned the Portuguese team the first official title in its history. Since then, Portugal has not been able to gravitate and although they have not missed any of the most important events at the national team level (such as the case of Italy, who inherited the title of European champion) they have not managed to be gravitating in the final phases of these.

A very important transition period

Portugal arrived at Russia 2018 as one of the great favorites, with their spirits sky high, they were the current European champions and they knew that 8 years before, Spain had been crowned world champion after the 2008 European Championship, but 4 years later, even as European champions, they failed resoundingly in Brazil 2014, the Portuguese did not want to relive that disappointment for the European Championship champion, they just faced Spain, Iran and Morocco in their group, after Ronaldo's hat-trick against Spain, spirits rose even more, Portugal beat Morocco and Iran and agreed to the next phase, where they were going to meet the first of group A, Uruguay. The expectations were high and Portugal was the clear favorite to take the victory against the Charrúas, who despite signing a good tie, were already beginning to doubt Tabárez's abilities in command of the team, however, Cavani surprised Uruguay and He sealed two tremendous goals to put a lot of ground in between and finally, Pepe's discount was not enough, Portugal unexpectedly said goodbye to the World Cup in the round of 16. Then came the UEFA Nations League, a tournament in which Portugal once again felt comfortable and supported by a perhaps not so complicated key, they won the first title in the history of the tournament, but from then on, things no longer look so clear.

Its maximum reference, Cristiano Ronaldo, is getting older and older and despite continuing to be an overwhelming goalscoring machine, he is no longer in the form he was years ago, so he undoubtedly needs electricity and verticalism, to put another . Fernando Santos has tried to renew the national team, with footballers who have been part of his process, such as Bernardo Silva, Joao Félix and company, however, a very hard blow came for the Portuguese. In the recent Euro 2020 (played in 2021) Portugal was part of the group of death, along with Germany, Hungary and France, after a comfortable victory against Hungary, in which Ronaldo surpassed Platini as the top scorer in history of the tournament, the Portuguese got enormously complicated falling beaten against Germany, then Ronaldo himself scored on another 2 occasions via penalty, to get a draw against France that classified them both, but that crossed Portugal with the dreaded Belgium, without showing much and being very dominated, Portugal was left out against the Belgians and lost the chance to defend their title.

The Qatar objective looks complicated.

Portugal only complicated its way to Qatar, managed to be matched in group A, a group that looked easy for the Portuguese at first instance, but they reaped two draws that led them to their last game under the obligation to win, to their bad Luckily, they lost and were sentenced to a playoff that many consider unfair after that goal that disallowed Cristiano against Serbia, which was totally valid. The point is that Portugal went to the playoffs and the situation became more tense if we looked at the draw that they got, first, they had to beat Turkey and then the winner against Italy and North Macedonia, that's right, on the other side was the champion of the European Championship, surprisingly Italy did not manage to qualify and an unconvincing Portugal was about to get extremely complicated against Turkey, everything cooled down after the penalty that Yilmaz missed and finally Portugal reached the final match against North Macedonia, where practically for obviousness, the Portuguese won, thus qualifying for Qatar 2022, but of course leaving a bad taste in the mouth, the last time that Portugal was in the playoffs was in 2014, in which they faced Sweden and in which the famous game of Christian VS Zlatan. Only one thing is clear, Portugal is not convincing and this start in the UEFA Nation League leaves more questions than answers for Fernando Santos.

What should Portugal do? Put an end to a process, that of Cristiano Ronaldo as a pillar of his team, not immediately, of course, but without a doubt after Qatar 2022, Pepe, for example, must be removed from the national team, giving way to the new Portuguese blood that he is looking for repeating what was achieved in 2016, furthermore, at that time one must consider how much more Cristiano Ronaldo can give to Portugal, he would be more than close to turning 38, and from what has been seen so far, he would continue to compete in top-level football, but without Without a doubt, I consider that the demand for him will be much less than what he has right now. So it is here when new leaders must be forged, inspired by the legendary figure of the Portuguese 7, Bernardo Silva, could take the baton without a doubt, or Joao Félix himself could end up unleashing that potential for which he was signed in a record number. What is true is that Portugal is in its last chance to win the only title that is missing in this process, the World Cup, but if you ask me, seeing the panorama, Portugal will not be able to transcend in Qatar 2022 and they should start looking at the next situations that are approaching.