{"id":257216,"date":"2022-12-16T00:57:04","date_gmt":"2022-12-16T01:57:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=257216"},"modified":"2022-12-16T05:57:58","modified_gmt":"2022-12-16T05:57:58","slug":"portugal-coach-dumped-after-ronaldo-debacle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=257216","title":{"rendered":"Portugal coach dumped after Ronaldo debacle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Portugal<\/a> coach Fernando Santos has quit, the Portuguese football federation announced, after eight years in the job after Portugal\u2019s exit from the World Cup in the quarter finals.<\/a><\/p>\n

The 68-year-old Santos reached an amicable agreement with the federation to leave two years before his contract ends, a statement said.<\/p>\n

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The federation named no replacement for Santos and said it was starting its search.<\/p>\n

Santos led Portugal to the 2016 European Championship title \u2014 the country\u2019s first international trophy \u2014 and the inaugural UEFA Nations League title in 2019.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Portugal left Qatar after a 1-0 loss to Morocco in the World Cup quarter finals.<\/p>\n

The Portuguese squad had an enviable depth of talent and won its opening two games in the group stage. In the round of 16, it made a splash by thrashing Switzerland 6-1.<\/p>\n

But Portugal\u2019s early departure from Qatar was widely regarded as an underachievement.<\/p>\n

Whoever takes over faces a tricky question of how to manage Cristiano Ronaldo\u2019s future role in the team.<\/p>\n

The 37-year-old star, who has made five appearances at World Cups over 16 years and is Portugal\u2019s record scorer and greatest ever player, was dropped from the starting lineup for the Switzerland game when a new generation of Portuguese players emphatically made their mark.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Against Morocco, he again started on the bench.<\/p>\n

Those tactical options caused friction between Santos and his star player, who left the field in tears after the Morocco defeat.<\/p>\n

In a later Instagram post, Ronaldo said his dream of winning the World Cup had \u201cended,\u201d but he didn\u2019t say he would retire from international duty.<\/p>\n

Portugal\u2019s qualifying campaign for Euro 2024, at least, appears straightforward. In Group J its opponents are Bosnia, Iceland, Slovakia, Liechtenstein and Luxembourg.<\/p>\n

Portugal's next international games are in March.<\/p>\n

\ufeffFor a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Portugal coach Fernando Santos has quit, the Portuguese football federation announced, after eight years in the job after Portugal\u2019s exit from the World Cup in […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257216"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=257216"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":257218,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257216\/revisions\/257218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=257216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=257216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=257216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}