Cristiano Ronaldo insists Portugal are not a one-man team.<\/p>\n
But if his country are to have any chance of winning the World Cup, then the Real Madrid superstar \u2013 who is facing a race to be fit for the opener against Germany \u2013 must justify his billing as the greatest footballer in the world.<\/p>\n
Anyone who witnessed Ronaldo\u2019s extraordinary performance against Sweden last November when he booked Portugal\u2019s World Cup place with a breathtaking hat-trick in the play-off will acknowledge anything is possible with CR7 around.<\/p>\n
Ronaldo\u2019s presence in Brazil after arguably his finest club campaign, will ensure that Portugal are one of the most talked about countries at this year\u2019s showpiece.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you have the best player in the world in your team, you will always have a chance\u201d<\/p>\n
William Carvalho.<\/p>\n
But just as he\u2019s liable to win a match singled-handed, it\u2019s not beyond the realms of possibility that Paolo Bento\u2019s squad could be heading home after a fortnight.<\/p>\n
Losing against Germany in that opener on June 16 would pile the pressure on them with Ghana and the United States next on the agenda.<\/p>\n
Portugal don\u2019t have the best of records against opponents they are expected to beat with the minimum of fuss.<\/p>\n
They were held to a 1-1 draw at home to Northern Ireland in the qualifiers, only a late equaliser by Helder Postiga sparing them an embarrassing defeat.<\/p>\n
And they failed to beat Israel in two attempts.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cristiano Ronaldo insists Portugal are not a one-man team. But if his country are to have any chance of winning the World Cup, then the Real Madrid superstar \u2013 who is facing a race to be fit for the opener against Germany \u2013 must justify his billing as the greatest footballer in the world. Anyone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,81],"tags":[37],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4285"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4285"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4287,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4285\/revisions\/4287"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}