Ronaldo and big fish Portugal wary of being bitten by minnows North Macedonia

A round of applause greeted Pepe, the veteran central defender, when he joined his Portugal teammates on Sunday. It was mostly respectful, and a little light-hearted. “The king is back!” shouted Cristiano Ronaldo to the one of the few players to whom Ronaldo has to look up in the national team’s hierarchy, at least when it comes to age and endurance.

Pepe, ruled out of action until the weekend because of Covid, turned 39 last month, two-and-half-weeks after Ronaldo celebrated his 37th birthday, and two months after Jose Fonte, Pepe’s fellow centre-half, turned 38.

There’s quite a collection of players in line to face North Macedonia in Porto on Tuesday evening who need no further reminding of what is at stake. Lose and Portugal will not be at the 2022 World Cup. Suffer the same fate as befell Italy against the Macedonians last Thursday and Pepe, Fonte and Ronaldo will almost certainly have said farewell to playing in a World Cup ever again.

Portugal’s map of their route to Qatar 2022 looked very different a year ago. When they travelled to Serbia in their qualifying group, they did so confident that the leadership of that group would be consolidated. Two Diogo Jota goals in Belgrade gave them a comfortable half-time lead over the Serbs.

Then the campaign buckled. Serbia scored twice. In the closing moments Ronaldo struck back, the comeback king that he is, and was celebrating what he assumed was his 103rd international goal when he noted the assistant referee had raised his flag for an offside. The official was mistaken, as television replays proved. Unfortunately for the Portuguese, there was no VAR in operation. The scoreline stayed at 2-2.

That refereeing error would have repercussions. In the last minute of the last