For Cristiano Ronaldo, Less Is More for Fernando Santos and Portugal

It was another weekend and another record for Cristiano Ronaldo, as his 22nd La Liga hat-trick against Athletic Bilbao took him level on the landmark with club legend Alfredo di Stefano and Telmo Zarra, who starred for Athletic in the 1940s and 1950s. It left Ronaldo with 13 goals in just six league starts so far this season.

Ronaldo’s next match will be on the international stage, against France. Given Portugal’s prolific production of wingers and relative dearth of centre-forwards, there may well be renewed calls to switch the captain to the very tip of the team.

There is a short, simple answer to that—and that answer is "no." As Fernando Santos embarks on his tenure as Portugal coach, starting in Saturday’s prestige centralised friendly in Saint-Denis, how he chooses to employ arguably the world’s greatest player will go a long way to defining his success or otherwise.

There are many aspects of the squad that Santos must address, and he has attempted to begin doing so with his first squad. The centre of defence is aging, a spritely midfield has become moribund and the reliance upon Ronaldo has reached new levels in the last year to 18 months.

Yet there is one policy which he should guard from Paulo Bento’s reign, despite his predecessor being on the end of some fierce criticism in recent months. Whatever your view on Bento’s merits or otherwise, he is the Portugal coach who most consistently got the best out of Ronaldo.

The numbers say it all. Bento’s own predecessor, Carlos Queiroz, was supposed to be the man who heralded an epochal period for Portugal’s anointed star, unlocking all of Ronaldo’s potential at international level, having been on board while he grew at Manchester United. It proved to be anything but the case.

In the two years of Queiroz’s reign, Ronaldo scored just twice, a penalty in a February 2009 friendly with Finland and the sixth in the 7-0 drubbing of North Korea at the 2010 World Cup, some 16 months later. He played 18 matches, both on the wing and on his own up front, for Queiroz.

And when he was on his own, he really was alone. One of the saddest sights of South Africa was Ronaldo stranded by the coach’s ultra-defensive tactics, as Portugal slipped out of the World Cup with barely a whimper—to Spain, of all teams, Portugal’s Iberian rivals and representing the country in which he had just spent his first season at Real Madrid.

Bento was no tactical mastermind, but when reshaping and re-energising Portugal on taking over in October 2010 after Queiroz’s sacking, he did exactly what always should be done with Ronaldo—very little.

Paulo Duarte/Associated Press

Under a man who he knew and trusted from knowing him at Sporting Clube de Portugal, of whose fabled academy Ronaldo was a graduate, he flourished. Bento simply used his star man in just the spot where he was so rampantly successful at club level, on the left side of attack with the freedom to cut in.

The blue touchpaper was lit. Ronaldo scored in Bento’s first match in charge, a 3-1 win against Denmark at the Dragao in a Euro 2012 qualifier. Ronaldo scored seven goals in eight matches during that qualifying campaign. Overall, he scored 27 goals in 38 matches under Bento, surpassing the legendary Eusebio before eventually becoming Portugal’s record goalscorer in March’s friendly against Cameroon.

So the message is clear. Portugal have plenty of problems, but their captain’s role is not one of them. As Santos prepares to get their Euro 2016 campaign on track after the humiliating defeat to Albania, he must appreciate how lucky he is to have Ronaldo at his very peak, and simply enjoy the magic.