Ronaldo praised by Portugal boss for avoiding questions about his future after Russia match

Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal team manager congratulated him on ‘not answering questions’ on Wednesday night after he fulfilled his obligation to accept a man-of-the match award by issuing a 76-word statement and marching out of the room.

The 32-year-old sparkled in Portugal’s 1-0 win over the host nations Russia, scoring the decisive goal, but when he arrived for the man-of-the-match appearance it was made clear he would not answer questions.

This was the way of avoiding him being asked to discuss his impending court case for alleged tax evasion, with a court appeance due on July 31.

His manager, Fernando Santos, was asked if the player should have answered questions about the game to meet FIFA protocol for the Confederations Cup.

‘I think he did very well in not answering other questions,’ Santos replied.

‘Do you think he should answer questions from issues outside the game? He is here to talk about the game full stop, not about his life and his family. I understand you are curious but you have to respect and have an understanding – and I’m saying this with a good feeling. You will have other opportunities.’

Ronaldo had said that his team – whose win puts them on the brink of the tournament semifinal - had ‘more opportunities than Russia and we were just winners. We played against a team playing at home with a home crowd. A team that pressured us but we were better.’

The sardonic Russia manager Stanislav Cherchesov proved that he will be one of the personalities of 2018 World Cup – if he is still in the job by then – with his own evasive responses to questions about his own team’s poor display. Asked how Ronaldo had given his defence the slip in the game’s eighth minute, he said: ‘We missed Ronaldo and it wasn’t just us, judging by the number of golden balls he’s received.’

Then pressed on whether his side – set up extremely defensively with a five-man rear-guard – lacked a Plan B, he said: ‘We did and you saw it so if you saw it why do you ask the question? Why ask about something you saw yourself?’ When asked about his side failing to ‘hit the target’, he replied: ‘What do you mean the target? The opponents’ goal?’

He said: ‘The first half of the game doesn’t go according to our wishes. During the break I did say that defensively we lost the ball several times and as you saw correctly we didn’t get to launch many attacks. We did change things in the second half but we had chances which didn’t yield goals

‘We lost the ball in the middle when we tried to attack in the middle so all the chances we had against them. The Portuguese used quick transition. It didn’t work for us. We used the wings and didn’t cross as much as try a low pass.’