The story of Cristiano Ronaldo and a Belgian influencer at Portugal’s pre-tournament base in Palm Beach encapsulates the 41-year-old’s seemingly irresistible allure and his nation’s struggle to let him go.

Celine Dept, who has 60million followers across her platforms, appeared so overcome with emotion about the prospect of meeting him that there were tears rolling down her face when she did. Ronaldo signed his name across the front of the Portugal shirt she was wearing, calmed her and posed for a picture. Her clip of their exchange has been shared millions of times.

A bespectacled, rather pinched-faced Ronaldo looked more like the team uncle as he stepped across the concrete in a slate-grey two-piece suit after the team’s Air Portugal jet touched down in Florida last week, yet he still has that extraordinary pulling power.

It’s striking how the Portuguese FA’s commercial sponsors - the national airline, national energy company Galp and beer brand Sagres - have not made him the central figure in their World Cup campaigns, yet his presence sucks in the global attention which they all crave. 

Millions viewed the clip of Ronaldo walking in front of the distinctive red, white and green livery of the team’s Air Portugal jet with his luggage last Thursday. Priceless marketing for the airline. No other team’s arrival has attracted such attention. It was all because of him.

It’s also why the World Cup just can’t pass up its ageing legends, who still seem to fascinate us the most. At the Houston Stadium on Sunday, it was taking an hour to register online for something they were calling ‘The Messi GOAT Challenge’ where participants attempt to successfully copy the moves of a virtual Messi - yet the queue was still a long one in the suffocating morning heat. 

It’s fortunate that Ronaldo will not be touring such ‘interactions’ when Portugal arrive to face the Democratic Republic of Congo here on Wednesday, because none feature him.

While Messi’s presence in the Argentina team still seems credible, with Alexis Mac Allister, his running mate and wing man in Qatar, perhaps reprising that role here whilst the magician himself delivers his occasional moments of football divinity, the case for Ronaldo’s selection is more ambiguous.

His movement is limited, his pace has gone and the chances of him capitalising on his enduring strength in the air and finishing are more remote. A high press won’t work with him shuffling around at the top of the team and he is high maintenance; a law unto himself. 

Though it must be said that he has scored 25 times in Portugal’s last 26 games. Any England striker with a record like that would be in the team.

Portugal, ranked fifth in the world, also have talents who make them better equipped to win without him than in tournaments past. There is a galaxy of midfield talent, in Bernardo Silva, Bruno Fernandes, Vitinha and Joao Neves. ‘Ronaldo’s brilliance cannot supersede the interests of the collective,’ says Portuguese journalist and commentator Antonio Tadeia.

To have him or not? The Ronaldo debate is raging across Portugal and one of its broadcast crews illustrated as much, on Monday, when we put the question to them. The younger two argued against. ‘Move on.’ 

The older of the three argued in favour. ‘He has done so much for us. He still inspires. We owe him this.’

On the eve of the opening game, Manchester United's Fernandes said: 'For all of us, in this team - we've grown up watching him play and it's an honour to be next to him. We know how passionate he is, and he is anxious, as he is representing the Portugal national team. He's very excited, too, like at the other World Cups he's played in, and we are all here to support him the best way we can.' 

There is less consensus in Portugal than in the rest of Europe, where a view has taken hold that it should be over for him now.

Ronaldo's 2024 European Championships, where he was substituted in only one of six matches and didn’t score in any, were wretched and his build-up to this tournament hasn’t been promising, either. In Portugal’s warm-up game against Nigeria, he seemed withdrawn and brooding, having spurned three good chances in a 2-1 win. A further four opportunities came and went in a friendly win over Chile.

Addressing journalists at the national team base of Oeiras, in the suburbs of Lisbon, before heading to the airport for this trip, the five-time Ballon d’Or winner responded to the criticism. 

‘Physically? Physically I feel good. You didn’t see the matches? I think I’m in good shape. We have a very good generation. I am sure that this generation will give many joys to the Portuguese.’

There were signs of what that generation could accomplish without him when he was sent off for elbowing Ireland’s Dara O’Shea in November’s qualifier, which should have meant him being banned for the start of the World Cup. Portugal proceeded to hammer Armenia 9-1 without him.

But Ronaldo seems to exist in a different football eco-system to others. He had dinner with Donald Trump, said the president was ‘playing for peace’ and his ban was commuted to a suspended suspension. What most in Portugal can agree on is the need for manager Roberto Martinez to be firm about the limitations on game time he allows Ronaldo now and not compromise the rest of the team.

It might not be easy for Martinez, a relentlessly positive individual who, if England manager, would probably have described the kit heist as a useful chance to experiment with different boots. 

He has not discounted Ronaldo still being around for the 2030 World Cup, aged 45. ‘No one should doubt it,’ he told a Portuguese radio station. ‘He deserves it.’ When Ronaldo got the red card against Ireland, Martinez said he deserved credit for not being sent off in his previous 225 internationals.

Perhaps he senses the higher forces that are at work in football these days. Everybody craves the simple, heaven-sent narrative - as we witnessed at the Qatar World Cup, when Messi lifting the trophy seemed written in the stars; made to happen by a strange force of momentum.

This time, Ronaldo has put Portugal at the centre of such a fantastical hope: him securing a World Cup winners’ medal, as Messi did. The storyboard creators envisage a Portugal/Argentina quarter final – bringing the two up against each other for an occasion the planet can fixate on, at the Kansas City Stadium on Saturday July 11. 

Some challenge that would be. It places an imperative on him to accept the necessary strictures on game time and accept he is a luxury. The 2025 UEFA Nations League finals, when he was taken off early in both the semi-final and final, after scoring against Spain and Germany, suggest he might.

Portugal’s group-stage matches against DR Congo and Uzbekistan – which he would not have featured in, had the ban stood – provide the chance for him to become the first player to score in six World Cups before the group stage is through. Do that and he also will equal Eusebio’s national record of nine World Cup goals.

Martinez says the national team are ‘carrying suitcases filled with the dreams of the Portuguese people.’ They want ‘to do what has never been done.’ 

First-time winners and a glorious swansong for one of the greatest players to have graced a football pitch. Some story that would be. The mere possibility tells we idealists that it is right he is out here, shaping what could be the most astonishing last dance.