After Portugal's disappointing draw on the opening day against DRC, midfielder Joao Neves' interview was very normal, but at such a sensitive time, it was taken too far by the media, as if "European Selecao" was experiencing a huge upheaval in the dressing room, with the focus of criticism all focused on CR7.
A journalist asked Neves after the match: "The Portuguese team is very united and this is also Cristiano Ronaldo's last World Cup. How can you improvise when there is such a big star in the squad? Remember that Portugal is very strong at this time with many other good players?".
We all know what Cristiano Ronaldo has done for the Portuguese national team and for the football world. However, at this time, he is also like a normal player among us. Ronaldo is no different from the rest and he will contribute like everyone else," Neves replied.
Neves's point of view is very civilized because this midfielder believes that Ronaldo is like all other players because football is a team sport. The only thing is that the context for this statement of the PSG star was right after Portugal was held to a draw by the DRC Congo. If it were said after a victory of the 2025 Nations League champion, everything would be very different.
Joao Neves has been heavily criticized on social networks just because of the concept of "normal player" he attached to Ronaldo in that statement. On many social networking sites, this phrase is repeatedly mentioned in posts that are not fully contextual. Therefore, Neves appears as a person who dethrones and criticizes Ronaldo on the day CR7 has very poor stats on the field.
Not only Neves was criticized on social networks, others such as Bruno Fernandes or Vitinha also suffered a similar storm. This talented midfielder duo is said to have not proactively passed the ball to Ronaldo, leading to CR7's deadlock like that. Joao Neves' girlfriend - Madalena Aragao even got into this scandal when posting a photo taken with the PSG midfielder. Everything was so panicked that she had to lock the comment on Instagram.
A fake Aragao account posted an article with the content "Tell your GOAT (Ronaldo) to retire!". After that, CR7's girlfriend Georgina Rodriguez immediately got angry and refuted on her personal page: "Wow! Look how the future generation is being nurtured!" referring to Neves and his girlfriend. After that, Rodriguez realized it was a post from a faker and she also deleted the content on her personal page.
Controversies on social networks are inherently very toxic, people like Neves, Aragao or Rodriguez all understand that. However, despite living in this environment for many years, they still cannot avoid scandals surrounding them just because of unnecessary things. This incident is not the fault of anyone within the Portuguese national team, if there is blame, blame the current social network for being too toxic when providing information.
What needs to be done right now is for the representative of the Portuguese national team to speak up and captain Roberto Martinez himself should do that. The press conference before the match against Uzbekistan is the most reasonable time to correct information and stabilize everything. Besides, players must also remind family members such as wives, girlfriends,... to be calmer to avoid accidentally becoming victims of posts with provocative content, causing collective division in the context that the team is not having good results.
The draw with the DRC left Portugal with a lot of work to do. Now, they are taking more time to resolve unnecessary things on social media.
