National Team: A Nearly Painful End to a Cycle

Traveling to the Americas at the end of a cycle might not have been the best strategy. For a national team boasting quality, a near-perfect blend of experience and youth, perhaps focusing on "last dances" wasn't worth it. It might have been better to have everyone playing to the same tune, like a certain national team where a "best in the world" continues to shine, yet a player like Otamendi can be benched without a fuss.

Yes, I know it's slightly provocative to mention Messi and Argentina when Portugal faltered. But you make your own bed, and for two decades, we've been making ours with the same green and red sheets, refusing to acknowledge the aesthetic merits of, say, blue and white sheets. However, that alone doesn't explain everything.

Let's drop the imagery and metaphors: perhaps Cristiano Ronaldo should have played less than the time Roberto Martínez gave him. Perhaps Gonçalo Ramos deserved more opportunities, and Trincão deserved more than a pointless trip to America, when he could have been resting in Monaco, the Algarve, or Saudi Arabia. But above all, we shouldn't have gone into this World Cup with the certainty that Martínez was leaving, the near-certainty that Jorge Jesus would replace him, and some conviction about CR7's international career ending (though this last part is harder to predict).

The World Cup began with a disappointing draw and the coach's subsequent declaration that "talking about being champions doesn't help." Yet, talking about being champions was precisely what FPF president Pedro Proença had been doing for months. It's fair to say that those near-certainties turned into stark realities right then, even if we didn't yet know (but suspected) that we'd be heading home early.

Pedro Proença stated yesterday that the "technical direction" wasn't his choice. This is true, but only in part. While he didn't hire Martínez, it's well-known that he kept him. And he kept him because Martínez won the Nations League (which, by the way, shouldn't be forgotten).

If Martínez wasn't his preferred coach, that would have been the ideal time to hire Mourinho or Jesus. Just as the end of this World Cup, even if Martínez had won it, would have been the time for a change. If the U17 and U20 victories were Proença's, then this semi-failure at the end of the cycle must also be his. The sun shines on everyone.