PORTUGAL

Cristiano Ronaldo may have chosen to play in Saudi Arabia instead of the USA but in November he was still invited to meet president Donald Trump at the White House as part of a visit by Saudi Arabia's crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. Ronaldo's sixth participation at the World Cup (the same as Messi) is unequivocal proof of his consistency, ambition, and the rage against time. So much so that no one dares to speak of an epilogue as his extraordinary career could still see him score his 1,000th goal. At 41, he manages to carry the feeling that there is still more to write, which is in line with the demanding nature he has always displayed. He is the leader, the point of reference, the bridge between generations. “Of course, I really want to win [the World Cup] but honestly it won't change my standing in football,” he told Piers Morgan.

Fernandes revealed recently in an interview with the Portuguese FA TV channel that he refused to leave Sporting for rivals Benfica in the aftermath of the attack by Sporting fans on the club academy, back in 2018. Seven years later, he turned down an astronomical salary to join Al-Hilal in Saudi Arabia, even though he felt that the Manchester United management was pushing him out: “The club wanted me to go. I told the directors that. I think they didn't have the courage to make that decision because the coach [Ruben Amorim] wanted me to stay. If I had said I wanted to leave, the club would have let me go.” Captain at United, he is also one of the leaders in the national team. He is also a staunch defender of Cristiano Ronaldo. “I know there are people who say the national team plays better without Cristiano, that the players are freer,” he says. “If that is the case, it is partly our fault. We don't need to be restricted just because he is on the pitch. He remains a top-level player inside the area and he draws defenders and creates spaces.”

To get some kind of variation of the usual praise Pep Guardiola heaps on a player he considers "irreplaceable" and with whom he wanted to renew for "many centuries," we can listen to what his national team coach, Roberto Martínez, has to say. "For me, he's the perfect example of what a Portuguese player should be," he told the Stick to Football podcast. "He's a tactical person, he wants to have information, he wants to know where the space is. He knows how to play inside, he knows how to play outside. He's not a fast player, but he's very intelligent in how he draws the opponent out. Tactically, he's a gift; he can use both feet – and if you can do that then you're a competitor.” Joined Manchester City from Monaco in 2017 and has become a club legend, winning every possible trophy. Fans are now clamouring for him to have his own statue outside the Etihad. As Martínez says: Usually you have the more tactical and creative player or a more competitive player. But then you can have both, and that's Bernardo Silva. If you want someone reliable, it's Bernardo. If you want someone marking the tallest player in the box, it's Bernardo."

It's the future that honours the past, through elegance and poise. The shirt remains tucked into the shorts, even after winning the Champions League at the age of 20. Neves benefitted from the move from Benfica to PSG in 2024 not only on the pitch but off it too, according to former teammate Tiago Gouveia, who also left Lisbon for France (Nice) a year later. "Signing for PSG did him a world of good. He was so addicted to sandwiches and supermarket lasagnas that it was starting to get worrying," he joked. The move may have changed Neves’ diet, but not his personality. "I go to the café and try to go unnoticed like an ordinary person,” he told Uefa. “I know that two or three people will recognise me and ask to take a picture, but I believe that the others will leave me alone. I don't have, for example, Vitinha's mustache." Says he always goes by his dad’s motto (he was a policeman): “the hardest thing is not getting there, it's staying there." Has reached such an appeal at such a young age that he was recruited - together with his girlfriend, the actress Madalena Aragão – to inspire the Portuguese people to vote in the 2026 presidential elections.

Pedro started out playing roller hockey in Viana do Castelo but switched to football at age 10. He was the first footballer born in 2000 (or later) to play for the national team but took an unconventional route to the top, not playing for one of the big threes in Portugal, going from Braga to Lazio to Wolves before arriving at Chelsea in 2024. When the Portugal coach, Roberto Martínez, was asked on the Stick to Football podcast, about comparisons between Neto and Eden Hazard, he said: "He's not like Hazard. Eden stopped the game to look for the 1v1. Pedro is the opposite, he speeds up the game.” In March Neto hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons, pushing a ballboy during the game against Paris St-Germain. He was very contrite, though, and offered his shirt to the youngster after the game and escaped with a warning from Uefa.

Last year was "unbelievable", according to the midfielder, who won the Champions League, Ligue 1, the French Cup, the French Super Cup and the European Super Cup with PSG, as well as the Nations League with Portugal. To cap it off he finished third in the Ballon d'Or voting. "There were many moments in my professional career when I doubted myself a lot,” told A Bola, the publication who named him Personality of the Year. “It wasn't expected that Vitinha would become a great player or that he could achieve anything. At least, that's the feeling I always had. That's what helped me, it was my fuel.” In fact, he added, “Luis Enrique believed more in me than I did myself.” The PSG coach is not afraid to give the midfielder some “constructive” criticism though. "My left foot is almost useless,” Vitinha says. “It's really bad. It's something Luis Enrique is on at me day and night to improve." A very humble person, he has said he wants to do everything he can to have the same influence with the national team that he has at PSG.

The tricky and fast winger left Porto after the fallout between his father Sergio, who was the coach, and the club president André Villas-Boas, in 2024, joining Juventus, where he wears the No 7 shirt that once upon a time belonged to Cristiano Ronaldo. "I didn’t get to speak to him before I joined,” Conceição told Sport TV. “But afterwards he said it is a huge club that demands everything from the player, a club that is used to winning, where you have to win every single competition you enter.” Francisco says his father was the best coach he ever had – "there are few like him" – but Sergio told La Gazzetta dello Sport that he had to use stick as well as carrot to get the best out of his son. “I gave him his debut during lockdown but he was a bit chubby so I said: ‘If you are hungry, drink water’. To go far you need to make sacrifices and have a certain mentality.