Portugal arrives in 2026 with the same question they've been answering, in different ways, for twenty years: what do you do with Cristiano Ronaldo? This time the question has an end date. He's 41. He plays his club football in Riyadh. He tore his hamstring in February and had a country holding its breath until he scored twice in early April. Roberto Martínez, the Spanish manager who took over in 2023, has been clear from the first day: Ronaldo is the captain, Ronaldo is going, Ronaldo decides when it ends.
The complication, which is also the opportunity, is that Portugal is no longer Ronaldo's team in any practical sense. Bruno Fernandes runs the midfield. Rafael Leão wins games on the wing when he feels like it. Bernardo Silva and Rúben Dias and Diogo Jota and Pedro Neto are the spine of a top-eight squad in the world by anyone's count.
If 2022 in Qatar was the awkward final scene where Ronaldo got benched for the knockouts and Portugal exited in the quarters, 2026 is the rewrite. The golden generation — Pepe is finally retired, but the rest of the cohort that came up around Euro 2016 — gets one more swing. They have never won a World Cup. They probably won't this summer. But they will, almost certainly, be one of the most-watched ten minutes of every match they play.
Week 1 Update: Portugal 0, DR Congo 0 — and Ronaldo's farewell tour just hit an unexpected speed bump. The Léopards were compact, fearless, and completely unbothered by the occasion, and Portugal couldn't find a way through. One point from one match, already behind Colombia in Group K. Bruno Fernandes ran and ran. Ronaldo looked frustrated. The rewrite doesn't start like this in the script, but Portugal have two matches to fix it.
Matchday 2 Update: Portugal 5, Uzbekistan 0 — and the farewell tour found its rhythm. Ronaldo scored twice in the first half (6', 39'), his first World Cup goals of the tournament, with Nuno Mendes, an own goal, and Rafael Leão completing the rout. The 0-0 frustration against DR Congo is a distant memory. Portugal top Group K with 4 points, and Ronaldo — at 41 — just reminded the entire tournament he's still capable of this.
Matchday 3 Update: A 0-0 draw with Colombia confirmed second place in Group K and a Round of 32 date with Croatia in Toronto. Ronaldo didn't score. Nobody scored. Nobody needed to. Five points, through to the knockouts, and a beautiful, excruciating Croatia match to look forward to — two aging golden generations, one knockout game, everything on the line. The rewrite continues.
Round of 32 (July 2): Portugal 2-1 Croatia — and Ronaldo finally killed an asterisk that had followed him across six World Cups. Ivan Perišić gave Croatia the lead in the 53rd; Ronaldo answered with a penalty in the 68th minute, his first-ever knockout-stage goal at a World Cup, becoming the oldest player in tournament history to score in the knockout rounds at 41. Then Gonçalo Ramos glanced a Rafael Leão cross home in added time. Croatia thought they'd equalized in the dying seconds — Pasalić was on the end of it — but VAR ruled Matanović had touched it first from an offside position, and Portugal survived. The rewrite now has Portugal facing Spain in the Round of 16. Modrić's farewell is written. Ronaldo's is still going.
Round of 16 (July 6): Spain 1-0 Portugal — and the rewrite is finished. For 90 minutes Ronaldo chased and found nothing, Bruno Fernandes pulled strings into spaces that never opened, and Spain's defensive structure held firm the way it has held all tournament. Then Mikel Merino came off the bench in the final minutes, met a Ferran Torres cross in the first minute of stoppage time, and ended the dream with one header. Ronaldo lingered on the pitch afterward, emotional and composed in equal measure. He said he left with "a clear conscience." Roberto Martínez resigned immediately. The greatest goal scorer in history finally scored in a knockout round last week — and the trophy that would have completed the story stays out of reach forever. The rewrite ends here.
He's 41, he plays in Saudi Arabia for Al-Nassr, and he tore a hamstring in February that briefly had Portugal panicking. He's back, scoring twice in his comeback in early April, and Roberto Martínez has never wavered: Ronaldo is the captain, full stop. This is almost certainly his sixth and final World Cup. Whether he starts or comes off the bench is the only real Portuguese debate left, and nobody wants to be the one to answer it.
The actual modern engine of this team. Manchester United's captain, the player who runs the midfield in red and the same one who runs it in maroon. He'll take the free kicks Ronaldo doesn't, take the penalties Ronaldo doesn't want, and absorb the criticism Ronaldo doesn't have to. Watch him for ninety minutes and you'll understand why Portugal have been a top-six FIFA-ranked team for most of the last decade.
The 26-year-old AC Milan winger who plays like someone gave a six-foot-two sprinter a soccer ball and said good luck. Inconsistent for Portugal, devastating in fits, and the closest thing this squad has to a player who can win a knockout match by himself in a single 20-minute spell. If he turns up in 2026, Portugal becomes a nightmare for any defense in the tournament.
Bacalhau — salt cod, the national obsession — supposedly has 365 preparations, one for every day of the year. The two you need to know: bacalhau à brás (shredded with onions, matchstick fries, and scrambled eggs) and bacalhau com natas (baked with cream and potatoes, the comfort-food version). Then there's the francesinha, Porto's monument to excess: ham, sausage, steak, and melted cheese under a beer-and-tomato sauce that requires a fork. Finish with a pastel de nata, warm, dusted with cinnamon, espresso on the side.
DoceHaven (Dallas) is the closest thing DFW has to a Lisbon café — a Portuguese bakery doing pastéis de nata to order, plus seasonal bolo de arroz and quiches. Pickup and delivery only, but worth the planning. For the savory side, The Port of Peri Peri (multiple DFW locations) does the Portuguese-via-Mozambique chicken with proper piri-piri heat. DFW does not have a proper Portuguese restaurant. Match-day fix: pastéis from DoceHaven, peri-peri to follow.
A soundtrack for the matches, the pregame, and the afterparty.
Portuguese fans don't quite roar like the South Americans — they sigh, they curse, they pray, they mutter "Cristiano, pá" about every twelve minutes. The shirts are everywhere in Lisbon and Porto, draped from balconies for a month every two years. There's a quiet, almost theological belief that this generation deserved more than it got, and a sense that 2026 is the last chance to fix it. If you sit near them, expect long fado-paced silences punctuated by sudden screaming. Expect a glass of vinho verde pressed into your hand by someone's tia. Expect to learn the word *seleção*.
Portugal has produced two Ballon d'Or winners in the 21st century — Luís Figo in 2000 and Cristiano Ronaldo five times — and zero World Cups. Their best-ever finish remains third place in 1966, the year Eusébio scored four against North Korea in a 5-3 quarterfinal that English fans of a certain age still talk about.