Cristiano Ronaldo is undoubtedly the greatest Portuguese player of all time, but is Roberto Martinez’s side actually stronger without him? We’ve crunched the numbers.

Ronaldo has given so much to Portugal over the past 23 years and is the main reason they’ve won three trophies in recent times.

In 234 international appearances, he scored 146 goals and provided 45 assists, averaging a goal contribution every 97.4 minutes.

With those sorts of numbers, it begs the question of why people would think that Ronaldo is now a hindrance to his country, rather than one of their biggest assets.

This narrative started to gain prominence around the 2022 World Cup, when CR7 found himself in a rut for both club and country.

This led to Ronaldo being benched for Portugal’s quarter-final clash against Morocco, which they ultimately lost 1-0.

Many predicted that was the end for Ronaldo on the international stage, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth.

New Portugal boss Roberto Martinez has put Ronaldo front and centre, leading to two underwhelming tournament performances and early exits.

With a lot of discourse currently around Ronaldo and Portugal, we’ve compared the national team results with and without him since the 2022 World Cup.

Since then, Portugal have played a total of 47 matches. Of those, CR7 has featured in 37 and has missed 10.

In the games Ronaldo has played, Portugal have boasted a win percentage of 70.2% and have scored an average of 2.05 goals per game.

Without Ronaldo, Portugal’s win percentage is the same at 70%, although their goal-per-game ratio jumps to 5.

Of course, the sample size of games without Ronaldo is small, meaning that the odd freak result will have a larger impact on the numbers.

For example, Ronaldo didn’t feature in Portugal’s 9-0 hammering of Luxembourg back in 2023, which boosts the numbers quite a bit in this regard.

We’ll let you be the judge of whether or not CR7 should still be starting for Portugal, but here’s the full breakdown of what the stats say:

Portugal’s record with Ronaldo since 2022 World Cup

Win percentage: 70.2% ⭐
Loss percentage: 13.5%

Goals per game: 2.05 (78)
Goals against per game: 0.63 (24) ⭐

Portugal’s record without Ronaldo since 2022 World Cup

Win percentage: 70%
Loss percentage: 10%⭐

Goals per game: 3.5 (35)⭐
Goals against per game: 1 (10)

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