Fernando Santos says that it is wrong to put too much pressure on superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, who has been criticised heavily in the past for his failure to deliver the goods with the national team. Ronaldo has been a superstar at club level and has won a number of titles. However, he has been unable to translate this success with the Portuguese national team unlike his predecessors like Luis Figo. For this reason, many consider that Ronaldo is not the best as he is thought to be. Santos has disagreed since he says that it is always a team game irrespective of the player’s quality.

Santos claims that Ronaldo has the chance to change any game in an instance, but he has to receive some help from his teammates in order to make an impact. Teams have often found it easy to handle Portugal largely because of the excessive concentration on Ronaldo. The Real Madrid superstar failed to make any impact at the World Cup 2014 and saw his team knocked out at the group stages in embarrassing fashion. This could be his last European Championship and Ronaldo would want to go out on a high. Portugal start their campaign with a match against Iceland on June 14.

“Ronaldo is important for Real Madrid, but he is at least as important for Portugal, if not more. If you have a player who scores 50 or 60 goals per season, someone who could score from out of nowhere, he is always going to be important. It’s impossible to quantify how important he is. But not even Cristiano can do it all on his own. Nobody can win games on his own. You are always going to need your team-mates’ help. But there is no denying he is hugely important,” Santos told Marca.