🚨🎙️Toni Kroos on Portugal's national team:
"First of all, congratulations to Portugal. If the objective was to move on from Cristiano Ronaldo, then you've achieved it."
"For years, people kept saying Cristiano was the reason Portugal struggled. Others claimed the team would be better without him and that there was no difference between Portugal with or without Cristiano. Fine—now the pressure is on them to prove it."
"From this moment, people will judge this team by what they achieve after Cristiano. If they truly believed he was holding them back, then they must go on to win the next European Championship and compete seriously for the next World Cups. That's how football works—you have to back up your words with results."
"We all know Portugal's history before Cristiano Ronaldo, and we all know what he helped the national team achieve during his era. He played a huge role in changing the mentality of Portuguese football and helped deliver the biggest trophies in the country's history."
"What disappointed me wasn't the result—it was the attitude. Throughout the tournament, it often looked like the unity and fight that made this team successful in the past just wasn't there. Everyone watching could see that."
"Now there's no more debate about Cristiano. The spotlight is fully on this generation of players. They'll be judged by what they win from here on, not by what they say. Football always remembers trophies, not excuses."
🚨 Cristiano Ronaldo: “I will wake up tomorrow with same mood as I did today. I did my best”.
“I won three titles with Portugal, before me it was ZERO titles. I can only be happy”.
Messi is on course for a possible second World Cup and first Golden Boot.
Ronaldo goes home from his sixth World Cup with no World Cup (again), no Golden Boot (again), and just three goals in this tournament - and a total of only 11 over six tournaments.
#justsayin