Portugal’s great footballer Cristiano Ronaldo’s World Cup journey ended with a 0-1 defeat against Spain in the last 16.<\/p>\n
Spain’s Mikel Merino’s decisive goal in extra time eliminated Portugal from the tournament, after which the 41-year-old Ronaldo could not control his emotions and appeared in tears on the field.<\/p>\n
Ronaldo had earlier announced that the 2026 World Cup would be the last international tournament of his career.<\/p>\n
However, after the match, he said that he would first consult his family and then decide about his future in the national team.<\/p>\n
Five-time Ballon d’Or winner Ronaldo has scored 976 goals in his career and is the only player to have scored in six different World Cups.<\/p>\n
However, he failed to achieve his dream of winning the World Cup. His best performance was leading Portugal to the semi-finals in 2006.<\/p>\n
Ronaldo’s continued involvement during the tournament was also questioned.<\/p>\n
Critics said his presence influenced coach Roberto Martinez’s selection despite the team’s talented players such as Goncalo Ramos, Bruno Fernandes, Vitinha, Joao Neves and Nuno Mendes.<\/p>\n
Ronaldo scored three goals in the World Cup but his overall performance was also criticised.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, coach Roberto Martinez announced his resignation after the match, calling Ronaldo a great football icon and saying that he worked hard to win the World Cup and set a great example for young players.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Portugal’s great footballer Cristiano Ronaldo’s World Cup journey ended with a 0-1 defeat against Spain in the last 16. Spain’s Mikel Merino’s decisive goal in extra time eliminated Portugal from the tournament, after which the 41-year-old Ronaldo could not control his emotions and appeared in tears on the field. Ronaldo had earlier announced that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":12058,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[43584],"class_list":["post-117408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-ronaldos-world-cup-dream-shattered-in-tears"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117408"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117417,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117408\/revisions\/117417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}