After starting Cristiano Ronaldo on the bench against Morocco, Georgina Rodriguez has been blunt in her criticism of Fernando Santos, the manager of Portugal.
Santos made headlines when he decided to bench Ronaldo for Portugal’s round of 16 encounter against Switzerland and replace him with Goncalo Ramos, who went on to score an incredible hat trick in the contest.
After Portugal’s 6-1 thrashing of Switzerland at the Lusail Stadium on Tuesday, Rodriguez, who is 28 years old, finally spoke out to defend Ronaldo and broke her quiet in the process.
On Saturday, in the quarterfinal matchup against Morocco, Santos decided to remain with Ramos as his starting goalkeeper, and Ronaldo was forced to settle for a spot on the bench once again.
Youssef En-header, Nesyri’s which was reminiscent of Cristiano Ronaldo’s, was saved by Diogo Costa as Morocco upset the team that won the 2016 European Championship in the first half.
The second half got off with Ronaldo coming off the bench early on, but the Portugal captain was unable to score the all-important equalizer that would have kept his team in the World Cup.
The Portuguese attacker, who was 37 years old and was playing in what may have been his final World Cup, broke down in tears in the tunnel following Morocco’s incredible 1-0 win.
Rodriguez was present at the Al-Thumama Stadium when Portugal was eliminated from the World Cup, and after the loss in the quarterfinals, she paid respect to her partner by saying that she was proud of him.
The model, who is 28 years old, posted a photo of Ronaldo to her Instagram Stories and captioned it with a scathing critique of Santos’ “wrong” decision to bench the Manchester United icon. Rodriguez also tagged Santos in the post.
“Today, both your friend and your coach made a poor choice. She said to her 40,6 million Instagram followers, “That friend for whom you have so many words of affection and respect.”
“The same one who, by getting you involved in the game, witnessed how everything altered, but unfortunately it was too late to do anything about it.
“You cannot overlook the finest player in the world, his most potent weapon. This is not something you can do.”