At 38 years old, Cristiano Ronaldo still has the physical condition intact to remain a regular in the Portuguese national team, even if he plays in Saudi Arabia, in Al Nassr, a peripheral championship and far from the spotlight of the Premier League, where he defended the colors of Manchester United. This is the result of an Aximage survey, conducted for DN, JN and TSF, in which 48% of respondents approve of the integration of CR7 in Roberto Martínez’s eleven, while 29% believe that the striker should not play initially, 11% think he should not even be called up, and finally 12% don’t know. This is before today’s match against Liechtenstein, at the start of Euro 2024 qualifying.
Respondents who support Sporting, the club that trained Cristiano Ronaldo for football, are the biggest supporters of the Portugal captain., followed by FC Porto and Benfica supporters. Don’t forget that at the last World Cup in 2022, CR7 was in the starting line-up in Portugal’s three group matches, but was eventually relegated to the bench in the round of 16 and quarter-finals against Switzerland and Morocco respectively. In the game against South Korea, he did not like being substituted, which caused controversy and strained his relationship with Fernando Santos.
Today’s game marks the debut of Spaniard Roberto Martínez as national coach. In his CV, the coach led Belgium to third place at the 2018 World Cup, but this achievement seems to have gone unnoticed by the respondents. In the survey, 47% of those questioned do not know if the coach was the right choice to replace Fernando Santos in the position of coachwhile the margin between those who agree with the choice (24%) and those who disagree (27%) is minimal. The new manager, who has worked for the Belgium national team and also in English football at Swansea City, Wigan and Everton, has signed a contract until 2026 and is on a mission to take the Portuguese team to Euro 2024 and also the 2026 World Cup.
Raphael did well
Finally Raphael. Six months ago, the Benfica striker announced his resignation from the Portuguese national team and most respondents believe he should not go back on the decision and thus are on the side of the player. However, the “vote” was close: there is a percentage difference of only two points between the “no” (36%) and the “yes” (34%).
Tired of not being used often, the winger skipped his participation in the World Cup to devote himself entirely to Benfica, the club he has represented for seven seasons. Still, according to the poll, Red fans are the strongest supporters of a return to the corner team, in contrast to Sporting supporters, who are less interested. At the time of the call-up, Roberto Martínez revealed that he had spoken to the player but was unable to convince him to return to the national team.
DATA SHEET
The survey was conducted by Aximage for DN, JN and TSF, aiming to gauge the opinion of the Portuguese on topics related to the selection and launch of Euro 2024. The fieldwork took place between 13 and 17 March 2023 and involved 801 interviews were collected from people over the age of 18 living in Portugal. Sampling was performed based on quotas, obtained through a matrix intersecting gender, age and region (NUTSII), from the known universe, rebalanced by gender, age group and education. For a probability sample of 801 interviews, the maximum standard deviation of a proportion is 0.017 (ie a “margin of error” – at 95% – of 3.46%). Responsible for the study: Aximage Comunicação e Imagem, Lda., under the technical direction of Ana Carla Basílio.
Source: DN
