Cristiano Ronaldo was awful in the World Cup warm-ups - has age finally caught up with Portugal’s greatest player?
This isn’t the first time that people have wondered about whether Cristiano Ronaldo can still cut it at the very highest level – but it might just be the last. As Portugal prepare to get their 2026 World Cup campaign underway against the Democratic Republic of Congo, concerns over their greatest player’s form loom large.
Cristiano Ronaldoplaceholder image
Cristiano Ronaldo | Getty Images
This will be the 41-year-old’s sixth World Cup, and while he’s spoken openly about the possibility of playing on until 2030, when the tournament will be hosted partly on home soil, there’s every likelihood that this will be his last dance on football’s grandest stage. But does he still have the moves?
Is Cristiano Ronaldo still good enough to win a World Cup?
If Ronaldo has made one thing clear, it’s that he doesn’t intend to let the ageing process claim him without a fight. As the build-up to the current edition of the tournament began, he told reporters that he “can play for the next four years” while national manager Roberto Martínez added that “no-one should doubt” that he might still be in the Portugal squad by 2030. But even as he rages against the dying of his career’s exceptionally bright light, there are concerns that time is starting to catch up with him.
Those fears were placed into sharp focus by his performance in a warm-up win over Nigeria, when he missed three golden opportunities and was eventually substituted without scoring. A simple one-on-one chance was dragged wide. A free header was ballooned over the bar. A final chance in the box was shanked high, wide, and absolutely nowhere near the goal. The Ronaldo that has broken so many scoring records was missing in action.
He’s still scoring freely enough in Saudi Arabia, where his 28 goals in 30 games helped Al-Nassr to win the Pro League title, but that was still his weakest return since he moved to the Middle East in 2023. In his first season, he hit 50. He is starting to slow down, no matter how much he might rail against the idea.
Still, Ronaldo remains Portugal’s best striker, even if that’s a low bar to clear given that the only serious competition for his role at the apex of Martínez’s 4-3-3 is Gonçalo Ramos, an inconsistent forward who is used primarily as a super-sub by both Portugal and his club side PSG. The inevitable think pieces wondering whether Portugal would be improved by Ronaldo’s absence, which have been a staple of the build-up to the last few major tournaments, miss the point that there is no heir apparent waiting in the wings.
The question isn’t whether Portugal need Ronaldo – they do – but whether that fact suggests that they simply aren’t good enough to win another trophy. Their superstar inspired them to the Euro 2016 title, but he failed to score a single goal in five games at Euro 2024 and comes in to 2026 looking a little out of sorts. He is still their best, but that may not quite be good enough any more.
Not that his worrisome outing against Nigeria has been a recurring theme. He scored five goals in five games in qualifying, and scored in each of the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final as Portugal won the 2025 Nations League. But his lack of composure and bite in that friendly last week has generated a few jangling nerves, as did his somewhat subdued form over the last few weeks of the Saudi season. He is either out of time or out of form. It may not matter which.
Ronaldo isn’t Portugal’s only star – but he’s the one they need to shine
The good news for Portugal is that they should have enough about them to escape Group K even if Ronaldo is still searching for his finishing touch. The Democratic Republic of Congo scraped into the tournament via a narrow intercontinental play-off win over Jamaica, Uzbekistan are debutants, and only Colombia look like an especially scary proposition on paper.
Portugal also have one of the best midfields in the tournament – Bruno Fernandes, Vitinha and João Neves would each get into just about any other team – and a strong defensive core. But they are still a side defined by Ronaldo, and they rely on him for their goals. If he is indeed out of sorts, then they may lack the firepower required to get past stronger sides.
That’s exacerbated by the fact that the entire attacking system revolves around him. He is the sole focal point in the final third, the end goal of every move. To underline the point, even Fernandes plays a strictly supporting role – he has scored in just two of his last 13 caps, and while he hit a hat-trick against Armenia in November, that came when Ronaldo was suspended. Martínez’s system is utterly dependent on Ronaldo’s form.
This is also a side that made rather heavy weather of qualifying, with a 2-2 draw against Hungary and a 2-0 defeat to the Republic of Ireland leaving them in need of that last-day win over Armenia to make the tournament in the first place. That defeat in Dublin was, at least, their only loss in the last 13 matches, but they haven’t been quite as convincing as they might like over the past year or so.
Which only sharpens their need for the best version of Ronaldo to show up for the World Cup. They need him at his strongest, his sharpest and his fittest to have a meaningful chance of a deep run.
They need Ronaldo to roll back the years and to provide some solid evidence that he really does still have four good years left in the tank. They need him to score goals. They most certainly don’t need him to play like he did against Nigeria.
Continue Reading