Roberto Martinez starts Portugal reign with shadow of Cristiano Ronaldo looming large

There are no easy matches in international football, Roberto Martinez, the new manager of Portugal, insisted as he embarked on his first week’s work with his players.

Every international manager has an obligation to stress that, especially when the immediate fixture list looks like a very kind welcome to the job: Liechtenstein first and then Luxembourg. Martinez added, as he explained the choices made for his first Portugal squad, that “he has never opted for the easy decisions” in his varied managerial career.

One selection among the 26 players he called up had, he knew, attracted special scrutiny and debate about whether it was an easy or a tough, bold choice.

Cristiano Ronaldo has been retained as captain at the age of 38, as the only member of the Portugal squad playing his club football outside Europe, and as the snubbed superstar who, for his previous two caps – the 195th and 196th of his record-breaking career – was dropped to the bench, used only in the second halves of key World Cup knockout matches.

Ronaldo does not sit comfortably on substitutes’ benches. The story of this, his 21st season as a senior professional, has made that clear time and again.

His contract with Manchester United was cancelled last November after he went public with criticisms of how the club, and coach, Erik ten Hag, showed what Ronaldo regarded as insufficient “respect” to him. He had refused to come on as a late substitute in a match against Tottenham Hotspur. He fell out badly with Fernando Santos, the coach who dropped him from the starting XI at the World Cup.

Santos, who guided Portugal and Ronaldo to unprecedented success – a first Euros triumph for the country in 2016, the inaugural Uefa Nations League in 2019 – left after