Will Martinez call up Ronaldo to the national team? He’s been here 19 years, he deserves respect, so I met him and we talked

Portugal has announced a new coach, Roberto Martinez of Spain. In his press conference, he had to face one of the most anticipated questions – will he call up 37-year-old captain Cristiano Ronaldo?

Fernando Santos has been leading the Portuguese national team since 2014 and at the beginning there was quite satisfaction with him. To make matters worse, he won the EURO in 2016 and brought Portugal their first ever trophy.

Cristiano Ronaldo has always spoken with great reverence and respect and was very fond of him. Their relationship together only broke down at the World Cup in Qatar, where Santos benched Ronaldo twice in the play-offs.

But with Portugal’s golden generation, Santos only reached the quarter-finals, having packed up in the eighth round at the previous two championships. So the federation parted ways with Santos and looked for a replacement.

The 49-year-old Spaniard led Hazard and co. to bronze at the 2018 World Cup, but the championship in Qatar ended in a fiasco for him, when Belgium did not even advance from the group and in addition, his main stars fell out.

While in Belgium Martinez had a relatively aged squad at his disposal, in Portugal he has a slightly different cadre. In fact, the Iberian island country is growing stars like João Felix, Rafael Leao, Goncalo Ramos and Nuno Mendes.

But it will also be important to sort out the position of ageing captain Cristiano Ronaldo. The top goalscorer in football history has not announced his end with the national team and would like to continue until EURO 2024 in Germany.

But given his age and his transfer to Saudi Arabia, where he is not facing much competition, his continued call-up is a big question that Roberto Martinez will have to address. And he had to answer that one at the press conference.

“I want to contact all the players. The 26-man squad at the last World Cup is my starting point and Cristiano is also a player on that list. He has been playing for the national team for 19 years and deserves respect so that we can sit down and talk,” Martinez said.

“We have 10 weeks to make a team for the EURO qualifiers. Today is a day of great satisfaction to get to know each other and tomorrow we will start working and getting to know all the players, Cristiano is one of them,” added the new Portugal coach.

Source: Twitter, Relevo