Why everybody is talking about Ronaldo – Portugal coach

Portugal head coach Fernando Santos says his skipper is hugging the headlines at the Euro 2016 not because of negative reasons but because the Real Madrid man is an amazing player.
The Euro quarter-finals start in Marseille on Thursday with Santos who says his counterparts believe Poland will go through readying his side for a “strategic” test against the Poles.

“We [Greece] faced Poland in the opening game four years ago and I remember it quite clearly. But tomorrow’s match has nothing to do with the 2012 one. My counterpart believes Poland will go through; I believe we will go through. There are no favourites – it’s 50-50.

“Everybody is talking about Cristiano Ronaldo and there’s a reason for that – he’s an amazing player. There are hundreds of players here we don’t talk about every day, but it’s normal to talk about players like Ronaldo or Lewandowski. Ronaldo knows how to deal with that.”

“It’s going to be a balanced game, although I don’t think Poland resemble any team we’ve played so far. They’re a very strategic team. They go from defence to attack very quickly and you can tell a lot of work has been done behind the scenes. When we have the ball ourselves, we’ll try and take advantage of their weak points.” Santos is quoted as saying on UEFA.com
Ronaldo is just one goal away from even more European championship history by matching French legend Michel Platini’s record mark of nine goals in the finals.
At 31 Ronaldo is unlikely to get a better chance for international glory with the winners in Marseille facing a semi-final clash against his Real Madrid teammate Gareth Bale and Wales or Belgium.