World Cup 2010: Pressure Mounting on Cristiano Ronaldo to Perform for Portugal

Cristiano Ronaldo will lead Portugal’s hopes in the upcoming World Cup Football 2010 in South Africa. He has a target what former Portuguese greats like Eusebio and Luis Figo failed to accomplish. Their best performance in World Cup came when Eusebio’s Portugal won the third place in 1966 World Cup in England.

Now, fans are expecting a better performance from Portugal this year. They could never reach the final in the tournament. So, even an appearance in the final would be considered as a success for Ronaldo’s Portugal. However, anything less than a semi final appearance would disappoint the Portugal fans.

So, the pressure is now mounting on Portuguese side, more specifically on Ronaldo himself. The Real Madrid winger failed to transform his club form into international football since Euro 2008. It is not that Ronaldo could never shine for his country. In fact, the winger, who can also play as a deep-lying midfielder, has scored many goals for Portugal in the past.

During the 2006 World Cup qualifying phase, Ronaldo netted 7 times, and thus, becoming the highest scorer in the European region. He scored 8 goals for Portugal during the qualifying round of Euro 2008. However, the star failed to continue his impressive form with Portugal after Euro 2008. In fact, he found the net only once since Euro 2008 and remained goalless during Portugal’s World Cup 2010 qualifying campaign.

Cristiano Ronaldo even failed to score against Cape Verde Islands last week in a frustrating goalless draw. The Portuguese side suffered a lot a criticism following their poor show against a team who are currently at 114 in FIFA ranking.

Cristiano Ronaldo has become world’s most expensive footballer when he moved to Real Madrid from Manchester United for a record transfer fee of £80 million, following a number of highly successful seasons with Manchester United. He helped Manchester United win 3 premier league titles in a row and a Champions League title in 2008.

Even though he spent a trophy less season with Real Madrid since his much talked-about move to the Spanish giants last summer, Cristiano Ronaldo has enough reasons to be happy with his individual performance as he netted 26 goals in his 29 La Liga appearances.

Portugal fans are now expecting that Cristiano Ronaldo would return to his scoring form by the time Portugal begins their World Cup 2010 mission with the match against Ivory Coast on 15 June.