Cristiano Ronaldo Will Be Looking to Lead Portugal to Glory

Playing the way Cristiano Ronaldo played in Sunday's match against Holland, it will be very difficult to stop the Portuguese captain. It goes without saying that Ronaldo is the best player at Euro 2012, and Sunday he finally showed that.

I read an article earlier today, by Joshua Robinson of the Wall Street Journal, about how Ronaldo was the hardest working man in sports. In the last calendar year, he has played over 71 matches for club and country which adds up to over 6,000 minutes played.

Just for a comparison, in the NBA and the NHL, last season’s minutes leader Kevin Durant played a total of 3,342 minutes, while NHL minutes leader Jonathan Quick played 5,556. So, not only is his workload different as a soccer player, he has a much bigger area to cover and for a longer amount of time.

While many professional athletes enjoy time off, Ronaldo will be headed right back to his club team after the Euro is over to join them in their preseason training.

Now, back to the matter at hand. Having played so many minutes, and finally having come out of his "shell" against Holland, how far can Portugal go? We now know that Portugal will have to face the Czech Republic this coming Thursday in the quarterfinals of the competition.

Portugal has some good and some bad memories against the Czechs.

In Euro 2008, Portugal cruised to a 3-1 victory over the Czech Republic, as Ronaldo found the back of the net in the 63rd minute. Some negative memories for the Portuguese came in Euro '96, as Karel Poborsky split the Portuguese defense and scooped the ball over a helpless Vitor Baia, eliminating them from the competition.

Ronaldo has two of Portugal’s five goals in this summer's competition, making Portugal one of the highest scoring teams, along with Russia and Germany, and just behind Spain who have scored six goals.

From a realistic standpoint, Portugal’s match against the Czech Republic may be one of the easier matches so far in the tournament, after having to play three of the top-ten ranked teams in the group stage.

After putting in a superb performance against Holland, Ronaldo should have all the confidence in the world to come out and lead his country to victory. He should be able to get at the Czech defense and cause problems for Petr Cech.

Looking at the bracket, Portugal does face the possibility of playing Spain in the semifinals, but that won’t discourage the Portuguese, as they tend to compete well with their neighbors.

After losing the final of Euro 2004 in Portugal to Greece, many Portuguese fans believed that they missed their window of opportunity to win a major tournament.

But after Sunday, many will be extremely confident going into Thursday's match. An invigorated and confident Ronaldo should prove to be too much to handle for the Czech Republic.

Will Ronaldo build on his performance against Holland and continue his uphill battle to prove that he is the world’s greatest player?