“No one believed in us,” Cristiano Ronaldo said eight summers ago, trying to fight back tears, and ultimately losing the battle. “No one believed in Portugal.”
History only shows that Portugal won the European Championship in 2016, and that it remains, at least for the next two weeks and possibly forever, the only major international trophy won by Ronaldo.
But as the 39-year-old superstar tries to do it again and prepares for his team’s Euro 2024 Round of 16 clash with Slovenia on Monday (3 p.m. ET on FOX), it is worth remembering how that triumph came about, a remarkable campaign built on the back of a catalog of catastrophes, farcical moments, near failure and gloomy form.
And for most of which, as Ronaldo accurately pointed out in the moments following the side’s 1-0 victory over France in the final, no one believed in them.
Why would they have?
It wasn’t like this team, where Ronaldo is surrounded by a star-studded crew, to the point where despite averaging a goal per game for Al-Nassr in Saudi Arabia, there are some who wonder if he should be coming off the bench. Even Wednesday’s defeat to underdog Georgia wasn’t particularly concerning, as it came with most starters rested after the team booked its spot in the bracket with a game to spare.
In 2016, in truth, the skeptics had every right to expect Portugal’s campaign to end at any moment, so frequent were the issues that continued to arise.
Where to start? How about when Ronaldo disliked a reporter’s line of questioning so much that he threw their microphone into a lake?
In the first game of the 2016 group stage, he didn’t like how defensive Iceland was against Portugal and went on a silly rant, describing the opposition’s mentality as “small” and predicting they “wouldn’t get anywhere.” With a population of 330,000, Iceland was indeed the smallest nation ever to reach a major tournament. Days later, the tiny Scandinavian nation beat England to reach the quarterfinals.
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Ronaldo didn’t like how he missed a penalty against Austria in a second-straight tie, and he didn’t like how Portugal went behind three times against Hungary in the third group game, though his mood presumably improved when he thankfully found his shooting touch for a pair of equalizing goals.
That tournament was the first Euros in which the field had been expanded to 24, meaning third-place teams could now advance, and Portugal took full advantage of the change.
It was a wild ride to the title, under head coach Fernando Santos, and it was a mightily worthy — some would say necessary — endorsement to Ronaldo’s glittering career résumé.
But Portugal was not, in pure terms, the best team at Euro 2016, and a remarkable stat is that it won only one of its seven games in regulation, beating Wales 2-0 in the semifinal.
Three draws and finishing third in the group actually afforded Portugal a much kinder side of the bracket, with Spain, England, Germany, France and Italy all collected in the opposite half. Even then, a 117th minute extra-time winner from Ricardo Quaresma was needed to get by Croatia, then a comeback and a penalty shootout to survive Poland in the quarters.
The mishaps weren’t entirely finished. Ronaldo collided with Dimitri Payet nine minutes into the final, sprained his ACL, and came off soon after, cheering, coaching and fretting on the sidelines until the final whistle blew. Portugal substitute Eder came on to strike the winner in extra-time.
Did any of the missed steps matter when it came time for the celebrations to begin? Not one bit.
“Very happy, very happy,” Ronaldo told reporters. “It was something I tried for so many times since 2004, praying that I would get one more opportunity. The Portuguese people needed it and the players needed it.
“It is one of the happiest moments of my career. I won so many things with my club, individually. I always said that I wanted to win a championship with the Portugal team, to make history, And I won.”
Fast-forward to the present and Portugal looks buoyant, even with a little concern from fans at the way the team, even with several changes made for rest and recuperation, fell tamely against Georgia.
Head coach Roberto Martinez believes the setback will actually serve to motivate Ronaldo and his colleagues. He also thinks that a recent friendly defeat to Slovenia will guard against any shred of complacency.
“This is not a friendly, it’s the knockout stage and it is very important for us,” Martinez said, in a press conference. “Losing (against Georgia) will prepare our team better from a mental standpoint.”
Using adversity to spark a dramatic run through the bracket? Why not? It happened once before.
