Cristiano Ronaldo is widely regarded as one of the best footballers of all time.
And yet for the last two Portugal World Cup fixtures, he hasn't been able to command a place in the starting line up.
The forward has had similar issues as Manchester United this season – culminating in his Old Trafford exit in November. It means that Ronaldo is looking for a new club, and given how he has reacted in the past, it's likely to be somewhere he can guarantee a starting spot.
But why is Ronaldo not starting for Portugal?
As FourFourTwo reported last week: "Ronaldo was dropped for Portugal’s World Cup 2022 last 16 clash with Switzerland after Santos admitted he wasn’t happy with the striker’s reaction to being substituted in a group stage defeat to South Korea.
"The Portuguese Football Federation then issued a public denial of reports claiming that the 37-year-old had threatened to leave the national team after losing his starting spot."
It's also the case that at 37, Ronaldo is not as mobile as he once was, and it's difficult for teams to play with a high press while he leads the line for them – he tends to need longer recovery periods between attacks. This was a large part of his absence from Manchester United line-ups under Erik ten Hag.
Replacing him with younger strikers may mean trading in experience and finishing, but it does mean that the whole team can play with a higher tempo than they can with him on the field.
It didn't help his case that Portugal won that game against Switzerland in stunning fashion – strolling to a 6-1 victory, in which Ronaldo's replacement Goncalo Ramos scored a hat-trick. When CR7 himself finally did make it onto the field, he was unable to add his own name to the scoresheet.
The quarter-final against Morocco did not go quite to plan while he sat stewing in the dugout, though: he came on around the 50-minute mark, with Portugal trailing 1-0.
