Pepe highlights Fernando Santos’ work with Cristiano Ronaldo: ‘He made him understand that ‘us’ is very important’

Cristiano Ronaldo has lived happy and thankless moments with his team. Among the best is winning the European Championship played in France in 2016 and winning the Nations League in 2018-19.

Although in the bad, and more recent, is the fact that the former Portuguese coach, Fernando Santos, left him on the substitute bench in the last matches of the World Cup in Qatar 2022, a tournament in which they reached the quarter-finals, losing against Morocco .

Now, Porto defender Pepe has hinted at one of the reasons that could comprise this move by DT. After the coach left the Bank of Portugal, he made the decision to take charge of the Poland team.

For the same reason, the Polish Football Federation interviewed the defender to give their impressions of the strategist. FORYes, he ended up revealing one of the milestones in Cristiano Ronaldo’s way of thinking and that was reflected in the last World Cup. .

The centre-back pointed out that Fernando Santos “made Cristiano Ronaldo realize that ‘us’ is very important ”. He added that the DT “He always gave priority to the collective ”.

After that, he reflected, making a comparison with Robert Lewandowski. “He (Cristiano) was very important for our success. I think something like this will happen with Lewandowski ”.

“Cristiano Ronaldo was our reference. I am convinced that in Poland it will be like that with Lewandowski. They are two great players,” he insisted.

Moreover, he felt that Santos had written a ‘great story’ with the Portuguese team and made the team ‘a benchmark in world football’. ”.

After the departure of Fernando Santos from the Portuguese team, the Portuguese Federation informed at the beginning of January who would be in charge of guiding the work of his team for the next competitions. The chosen one was Roberto Martínez, who was under the technical direction of Belgium for six and a half years .

“I’m very happy to be here, I’m delighted to be able to represent one of the most talented teams in the world. This is the project I wanted. I understand that there are a lot of expectations and goals, but I also understand that there is a large group of people working to achieve our goals. “, he said in his official presentation.

One of the first issues he was consulted over was Cristiano Ronaldo’s presence in future calls, due to his move from Europe to the Saudi league at the hands of Al Nassr.

“Football decisions have to be made on the pitch. I don’t make decisions in the office. My starting point is the list from the last World Cup and Cristiano is a player on that list. He has been part of the national team for 19 years and deserves the respect to sit down and talk ”.