According to Stuart Pearce, Portugal’s players did not trust Cristiano Ronaldo, leading to not passing the ball often to CR7. 

Stuart Pearce commented on Ronaldo in the match against the Czech Republic

Roberto Martinez’s team kicked off their Euro 2024 campaign with a dramatic comeback against the Czech Republic. Seleccao surprisingly took the lead after Lukas Provod’s goal.

A few minutes later, the score was level again after an unfortunate own goal by Robin Hranac.

It wasn’t until the 92nd minute that Francisco Conceicao scored the decisive goal after coming off the bench.

There has been much debate about whether Cristiano Ronaldo will help or hinder Portugal, because he is 39 years old and plays in the Saudi Pro League.

Cristiano Ronaldo did not score against the Czech Republic

In the first half, the striker born in 1985 had many opportunities to score but could not take advantage of them.

In the second half, he no longer had much ball to finish. Commenting on talkSPORT, former England star Stuart Pearce said that Ronaldo’s teammates probably lack faith in their captain.

He said: “ This may sound ridiculous, but maybe they don’t trust Ronaldo enough to keep giving him the ball, that sort of thing. There were times during the game when he signaled but they didn’t give him the ball. There was a situation where Bernardo Silva did not pass the ball to Ronaldo in a favorable position, and I found that quite strange.”

English legend Alan Shearer believes that Portugal is too dependent on CR7, saying on BBC Sport: ” Sometimes Portugal is in a good position, but they are just looking for Cristiano Ronaldo, they are too dependent on him.” that”.

Stuart Pearce believes that Bernardo Silva intentionally did not provide the ball to Cristiano Ronaldo in a Portuguese attack against the Czech Republic.

Portugal defeated the Czech Republic according to a difficult scenario. “European Brazil” suddenly conceded first and had to wait until the 90+2 minute to complete the comeback, on the day captain Cristiano Ronaldo could not score.

This morning, Bernardo Silva worked side by side with “CR7” in attack for 90 minutes. Commenting via TalkSPORT, former England player Stuart Pearce said that the Man City star showed a lack of faith in the 39-year-old captain.

Silva played the entire match. Photo: Internet

“It sounds strange, but maybe the Portuguese players don’t trust Ronaldo enough to constantly provide the ball to Ronaldo,” Pearce said. “Several times during the game, he moved but they didn’t pass the ball.”

“There was a situation where Ronaldo ran to cut to the right. If it were 10 years ago, his teammates would have brought the ball forward and knew for sure he would accelerate and score. Silva missed the pass like that, I find this quite strange”.

Silva did not have a good connection with Ronaldo in the victory over the Czech Republic. Photo: Internet

The mainstay of “Cityzens” did not have a truly satisfactory performance today. Statistics from Sofascore show that Silva failed 8 passes and lost the ball 13 times.