'Charity game set up for Cristiano Ronaldo'- Alexi Lalas claims Portugal captain 'hurt' his country at Euro 2024 as ex-USMNT star suggests 'fear' prevented Roberto Martinez from dropping CR7

Ronaldo endured a nightmare tournament at Euro 2024, despite playing every game. The Al-Nassr star failed to score and only managed to provide one assist, in his side's 3-0 group stage win over Turkey.

Ronaldo was left in tears against Slovenia after missing a penalty, before scoring in the shootout to send Portugal into the quarter-finals, where they were beaten on penalties by France. And Lalas believes Martinez should have dropped the 39-year-old early on at the tournament, instead of turning it into a "charity" exhibition.

Ex-USMNT international Lalas said on his State of the Union podcast: "When it comes to Portugal and Ronaldo in this tournament, they have no one to blame but themselves. And when I say ‘themselves’, ultimately it rests with Roberto Martinez. He made his bed and that bed was with Ronaldo in it. He leaned into it all tournament and propped him up at every chance he could get, including playing him in that third [group stage] game, trying to get him a goal. If it was not a player called Cristiano Ronaldo, in any other circumstance, that player would’ve been taken off the field. Not necessarily because he’s not good, but strikers are there to serve a purpose. And obviously, the ultimate purpose is to score goals, or at the very least to be dangerous."

He added: “Sometimes there also comes up a point where you need to mix it up, and you have other arsenal on the bench that you bring in. Maybe it’s a like-for-like, maybe it’s a different type of person up there. In this case, that wasn’t done. I don’t know if it was out of fear or out of respect or a combination of all of it.

"What you ended up having in this tournament was a charity game set up for Ronaldo and that’s not even fair. This is a situation that Roberto Martinez created and Cristiano Ronaldo accepted and certainly didn’t do anything to change. Ultimately, it hurt Portugal."

Ronaldo will head back to Saudi Arabia to prepare for the 2024-25 season with Nassr, as questions rage over his future with the Portuguese national team. He has yet to win a major trophy with Al-Nassr, who were beaten to the Saudi Pro League title by Al-Hilal last term.