Portugal‘s first day in Qatar has been a crazy one. The squad is based more than 30 kilometres from the city of Doha and will be preparing for their participation in the World Cup at the Shahaniya Sports Centre.
The Portuguese Football Federation has set up an isolated camp to ensure that Fernando Santos‘ team is disturbed as little as possible… at least that’s the plan
However, Cristiano Ronaldo‘s explosive interview about his difficult situation at Manchester United has disturbed the calm in Portugal’s training camp. On the first day of press conferences and training, there was chaos at the Shahaniya Sports Centre.
Hundreds of journalists from all over the world wanted to attend the events planned by Portugal, but some of them could not get in because they had not completed the FPF’s request correctly (access had to be requested more than 24 hours in advance).
The security provided by the World Cup organisers was completely overwhelmed by the number of media representatives who wanted to enter.
It was an international media pack including MARCA and a lot of English outlets.
Still in the street, and still unable to enter the facilities, some Portuguese journalists recognised that: “This is because of Cristiano Ronaldo. That interview…”. Most agree that the expectation around Fernando Santos’ team is not ideal.
Bernardo Silva was the player who appeared at the press conference and more than half of the questions were about CR7. His speech was always the same: “The information coming from England has nothing to do with the Portuguese national team. It doesn’t affect me, it affects Cristiano Ronaldo. I’m not going to comment on anything.”
In training, Cristiano Ronaldo took to the pitch alongside Pepe. They both played with a ball and then took part in one of the three drills organised by Fernando Santos. Cristiano was at one end and Bruno Fernandes at the other.