Portugal meet Denmark in Braga on Saturday night with the match carrying a different weight after Cristiano Ronaldo ended his 23-year association with the national team. It is Portugal’s first game since the 41-year-old announced his retirement in a lengthy video on social media, saying it was time to “pass it on to the future”.
The Nations League meeting at Braga Municipal Stadium in Braga kicks off at 7:45pm, or 19:45 GMT, and it arrives with Portugal already through to the quarterfinals. They have four wins out of four and can finish as group winners if they avoid defeat, while Denmark need to beat Portugal and hope that Norway do not beat Wales to keep their own quarterfinal hopes alive. That is why the search for Portugal Vs has sharpened now: one side is trying to manage life after Ronaldo, and the other is fighting for survival.
Portugal’s record in the campaign explains the confidence around them. They opened with a 1-0 home win over Wales, then beat Denmark 4-2 away in Copenhagen before beating Norway 2-1 at home, with Ronaldo an unused substitute in that match. Goncalo Ramos and Joao Felix have each scored three goals for Portugal so far, underlining how the scoring burden has already spread away from one player.
Denmark know the size of the task because they have already lived through the damage Portugal can do. In the 4-2 loss on October 1, Joao Cancelo, Goncalo Ramos, Vitinha and Joao Felix scored for Portugal, while Mikkel Damsgaard and Rasmus Hojlund replied for Denmark. Hojlund has scored three of Denmark’s seven goals in the competition, but his side still arrive in Braga with two wins and two losses, including a 3-2 defeat in Norway, a 2-0 home victory over Wales and a 1-0 away win.
The friction here is obvious. Portugal are unbeaten, secure and no longer have their record scorer in the dressing room, while Denmark enter second in the standings with their fate tied to two results at once. Opta’s supercomputer gives Portugal a 59.4 percent chance of victory and Denmark 19.4 percent, but the numbers do not erase the shift that comes with Ronaldo’s departure. For Portugal, this is the first step into a post-Ronaldo phase; for Denmark, it is the last chance to force their way into the last eight.
That makes Saturday less a formality than a test of who can settle quickest into the new reality. Portugal have already moved on in the table, but the next question is whether they can move on cleanly on the pitch without the player who defined the team for more than two decades.
