Ricardo Quaresma brutally slams Rúben Dias over his post-match comments about dedicating tonight’s defeat to Cristiano Ronaldo: “Nah, I’m sorry, but I won’t take those words from him. Not from Rúben Dias.
This isn’t how you play when you’re supposedly dedicating a game to the greatest player in your country’s history. You don’t come out after a defeat and claim you dedicated the game to him as if that somehow makes the performance acceptable.
And if I may ask, Rúben Dias, is this how you dedicate a game to someone? By putting in a performance like that? By disappearing when your country needed you most
Which country honours its greatest player this way? Which group of players claims to be playing for a legend but cannot even give him something to be proud of?
Let’s not pretend we’re talking about just any former teammate here. This is Cristiano Ronaldo. A man who carried that national team for years, sacrificed so much for that shirt and helped Portugal become the country everyone feared on the international stage.
Some of you were happy to enjoy the benefits of playing alongside him, but now that the responsibility is on your shoulders, you cannot even deliver a performance worthy of the shirt you’re wearing.
You don’t honour Cristiano Ronaldo with emotional statements after the final whistle. You honour him by fighting, competing and giving everything on that pitch.
If you really wanted to dedicate tonight to him, you should have played like it. Don’t use his name to dress up a terrible performance. Cristiano deserves much better than that.”