“You judge Ronaldo”, “Portugal may not have qualified without him” - Ferdinand enters raging debate over refusing to criticize Cristiano Ronaldo

Rio Ferdinand launched into a passionate defense of his former teammate Cristiano Ronaldo for his refusal to criticize the legendary forward. The Los Blancos legend played at his final European Championships this summer. Still, he failed to impress and could not score a single goal in an international tournament for the first time in his career.

Ronaldo was appearing at a record sixth Euros, the most in the competition's history. He is also the highest goalscorer in the history of the European championships, with 14 goals and eight assists from 30 appearances in the competition over 20 years.

Ferdinand, who played alongside Cristiano Ronaldo at Manchester United did not appreciate the criticism of his former teammate, saying on his YouTube channel, Rio Ferdinand Presents FIVE:

“The Martinez bit about taking him off or taking him off of free-kicks, that’s not Ronaldo. Yeah, he wants it [all the time] All the players wants to take it, Bruno wants to take every free-kick, he does that at club level, right? The manager decides at international level [about] who is doing what. If the manager can’t say, ‘Ronaldo, you’re off them [free-kicks]’, I don’t understand why Ronaldo gets the blame for that."

Ferdinand continued, saying:

“His obsession and desire to play every single game is part of his greatness. You can level that on him that he was desperate to score and he was going over the top [with free-kicks from strange angles]. I understand that and I get that."

“But that particular game, the quarter-finals, I said if I had a young striker at my football club, I’d go and clip up every single time Portugal got the ball in and around the area or wide and just highlight Ronaldo’s movement."

"It was a thing of beauty. He was doing two and three and four movements to get on the end of one ball. His execution when the ball arrived for that one chance was off. But the geezer’s scored a thousand goals. So we can let him off for that one.”

The Former Manchester United defender concluded by defending his stance not to criticize Cristiano Ronaldo during his analysis of the tournament, saying:

“In that game, why did he have to be called out [by me while doing analysis?]. I didn’t say he had a good game. I said his movement [was brilliant]. He didn’t shine, but also he got locked up by probably the best centre-back of the tournament in Saliba. Sometimes you’ve got to give people credit rather than going, ‘oh it’s him’."

“Sometimes people take the performance off you. You judge Ronaldo [too much], look he’s 38 or 39 years old, by the way Portugal may not have even qualified without him, he got 10 goals," Ferdinand concluded.

Cristiano Ronaldo remains the highest-scoring player in the history of men's international football with 130 goals and 47 assists in 212 games for Portugal. Despite the criticism and questions about his abilities, he will remain a part of the history books for his accomplishments for his country.

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Cristiano Ronaldo's performance at Euro 2024

Cristiano Ronaldo did not have the Last Dance he would have imagined at the European Championships when he turned up for his sixth edition of the tournament. The Al-Nassr striker has the record for the most appearances in the competition (30) and is the highest goalscorer in its history with 14 strikes.

The Euro 2016 winner did not lack for minutes on the pitch or attempts at goal, but simply could not find the back of the net in Germany. He played 486 minutes of football, managing only a solitary assist and missing an extra-time penalty against Slovenia in the Round of 16 before exiting in the quarterfinals on penalties to France.

Cristiano Ronaldo's future with the Portugal team remains unclear at the moment with the next major tournament, the 2026 FIFA World Cup fast approaching, it remains to be seen if he will retire from international duty before then.