{"id":312710,"date":"2025-11-25T12:15:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T12:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/312710\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T12:15:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T12:15:08","slug":"roberto-martinez-hits-back-at-critics-over-ronaldos-age-and-importance-to-portugal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/312710\/","title":{"rendered":"Roberto Martinez hits back at critics over Ronaldo\u2019s age and importance to Portugal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanaweb.com\/GhanaHomePage\/SportsArchive\/Roberto-Martinez-hits-back-at-critics-over-Ronaldo-s-age-and-importance-to-Portugal-2010885?gallery=1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/90569187.295.jpg\" alt=\"A photo of Cristiano Ronaldo and Roberto Martinez\" title=\"A photo of Cristiano Ronaldo and Roberto Martinez\" width=\"295\" height=\"177\" \/> <\/a>A photo of Cristiano Ronaldo and Roberto Martinez<\/p>\n<p id=\"article-123\">Head coach Roberto Martinez, has responded to critics over Cristiano Ronaldo\u2019s age and importance to Portuguese national team ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>According to Roberto Martinez, Cristiano Ronaldo is playing regularly in the Portuguese national team despite his age because he is the best striker they have in the team.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on Monday Night Football on Sky Sports, Martinez maintained that he has no logically reason not to play a play who has scored 25 goals in 30 games for his club.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanaweb.com\/GhanaHomePage\/SportsArchive\/Watch-Cristiano-Ronaldo-s-stunning-overhead-kick-in-the-Saudi-Pro-League-2010739\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch Cristiano Ronaldo&#8217;s stunning overhead kick in the Saudi Pro League<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen we win &amp; Ronaldo scores, the question is \u2018What are you going to do when Cristiano isn\u2019t there? The team depend on him too much.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen Cristiano doesn\u2019t score, it\u2019s \u2018How you gonna win with a 40 year old? For us it\u2019s easy: He plays because he has 25 goals in 30 games,\u201d Roberto Martinez said on Sky Sports.<\/p>\n<p>Portugal secured their qualification for the 2026 FIFA World Cup in the United States of America, Canada and Mexico after beating Armenia 9-1 on November 16, 2025.<\/p>\n<p>JE<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A photo of Cristiano Ronaldo and Roberto Martinez Head coach Roberto Martinez, has responded to critics over Cristiano&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-312710","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-soccer","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}