Award out of sentiment? Ronaldo named Man of the Match despite poor rating

[p]Data and ratings from Flashscore, where the striker received an average score of 6.6, back them up.[/p][p]According to both, [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/ronaldo-cristiano/WGOY4FSt/"]Ronaldo[/a] was among the worst players on the field. He only stood out for converting a penalty, which improved his overall World Cup tally to 11 goals (though four of those came from the spot). Otherwise, he wasn't particularly dangerous. In fact, that penalty was his only touch in the box![/p][p]He barely saw the ball at all - just 25 touches in 81 minutes played. Of Portugal's starting eleven, only goalkeeper [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/diogo-costa/hC31Ab0c/"]Diogo Costa[/a] (22) had fewer. The same goes for passes: he made just 21 during his entire time on the pitch. Centre-back [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/dias-ruben/OpVD3nmU/"]Ruben Dias[/a] had four times as many (87), and winger [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/leao-rafael/AqOPWN5s/"]Rafael Leao[/a] more than double (47).[/p][p][b][i]That's why, based on the new Flashscore rating, Ronaldo received a score of 6.6, the fourth worst among the Portuguese players.[/i][/b][/p][image alt="Ronaldo's heat map vs Croatia" id="cbf611ad-a2e1-411b-bfb7-fe51b82c00ab" credit-line="StatsPerform via Opta" guid="a6ca3a06-d09f-4c8e-a9d2-afb2ce9fec78" original-width="1080" original-height="1080" /][p]Everything suggests that Ronaldo received the award purely out of sentiment, given his remarkable age. After all, he played the match at 41 years and 147 days old, making him the oldest player ever to appear in a World Cup playoff game. But that alone doesn't help [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/team/portugal/WvJrjFVN/"]Portugal[/a]. One of the greatest footballers in history faced criticism four years ago in Qatar, where he ended up on the bench, and it's no different this year.[/p][p]The legend really isn't showing anything worth praising. In the previous match against Colombia, he managed just two touches in the opponent's box, and his pass accuracy of 81.5% put him at the bottom of the Portuguese lineup.[/p][image alt="Ronaldo's stats vs Croatia" id="29a2487f-5062-45ae-936c-eff8269f2f71" credit-line="StatsPerform via Opta" guid="375ee08d-a60c-4010-956a-c78f28fa8ec5" original-width="1080" original-height="1080" /][p]What's most striking is that in neither of these last two matches did he complete a single dribble, which has always been his trademark. Against Uzbekistan, he masked his poor performance with two goals, but his numbers were even worse (for example, pass accuracy was just 68.4%, again the lowest in the team).[/p][p]Simply put, based on the data alone, it would make sense for coach Roberto Martínez to bench Ronaldo for the next match against Spain. But that's unlikely to happen - perhaps because of the questionable Man of the Match award…[/p][embed guid="355912d3-6489-4872-9d90-6fd35653488f" url="https://x.com/FabrizioRomano/status/2072856169417175215" social-type="twitter" /][p][a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/game/soccer/croatia-K8aznggo/portugal-WvJrjFVN/?mid=6BqAZhfn"][b]Check out the match stats from Portugal vs Croatia.[/b][/a][/p]