Cristiano Ronaldo is adamant he enjoys playing at the Aviva Stadium despite the likelihood of him being booed on Thursday once he leads Portugal into World Cup qualification battle.<\/p>\n
Both teams are relying on a result from the penultimate qualifier \u2013 a win for Portugal to secure a place in North America next year and Ireland to keep alive their slim playoff hopes.<\/p>\n
Last month\u2019s meeting in Lisbon was the sole game in Portugal\u2019s four so far for Ronaldo not to rattle the net. He cut a frustrated figure from striking the post and Caoimh\u00edn Kelleher saving his penalty. It took a stoppage-time winner from R\u00faben Neves for the hosts to sneak a 1-0 win.<\/p>\n
Ronaldo also didn\u2019t score on his last trip, the Dublin stalemate three years ago, but the 40-year-old will thrive on the reception he\u2019s envisaging from the Irish crowd.<\/p>\n
“I really like the fans here,\u201d he said with stereotypical charm at the pre-match press conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe support these fans give to the national team, it’s lovely. For me, it’s a pleasure to come and play here again.<\/p>\n
“Of course, it will be tough. I hope they don’t boo me too much tomorrow. I swear that I’m going to try to be a good boy.<\/p>\n
“But of course, I do my job. I try to win the game and try to score to help my team. I’m sure that the game will be difficult.”<\/p>\n
His manager Roberto Martinez is forecasting a more adventurous Ireland to apply themselves on home soil, despite the nations being 57 places apart in Fifa\u2019s ranking.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019ll see another side of Ireland tomorrow,\u201d said the former Everton and Wigan Athletic boss about the underdogs, ravaged by missing injured trio Evan Ferguson, Robbie Brady and Jason Knight.<\/p>\n
\u201cIreland are dangerous on the ball in their attacking threat. They use their deadball situations very well, from throw-ins in the final third to corners, as you can imagine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have a system with three centre-backs, who have a lot of presence in both boxes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a big part of this Irish team but if I was to highlight something, it\u2019s the purpose and passion the players have to represent the Irish jersey.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are a well-organised, synchronised team and that\u2019s difficult to get at international level, when you have only three days to work.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe players are really committed and the coach gives really clear instructions. What we saw in Lisbon was a very well- organised team defending but with a lot of intelligence as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cristiano Ronaldo is adamant he enjoys playing at the Aviva Stadium despite the likelihood of him being booed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43,1842],"class_list":["post-136502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-republic-of-ireland-mnt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}