Paulo Ferreira

The new Portugal boss, Fernando Santos, has named Cristiano Ronaldo in the squad that he has picked for the friendly encounter against France.
The Portuguese will be taking on Les Blues in a week time before they make their way to Denmark to play their second Euro qualifier.
As far as Portugal’s first qualifier is concerned, they lost it to Albania the previous month by a narrow margin.
Ronaldo was not there representing Portugal in that game. Paulo Bento, the team’s manager at that time, had kept the Blancos talisman out citing fitness issues.
Bento, perhaps, would have thought that his team, even without Ronaldo, was good enough to get better of Albania, but, that wasn’t the case to be, and the 45-year old manager had to pay the price by being sacked.
Santos calling Ronaldo back is not surprising by any means. It was on the cards especially after how the winger has played for Madrid in the ongoing Liga. His goals’ tally is already in two digits, while; the no. of games that he has featured in is only 5.
Apart from Ronaldo, there have been some more new inclusions in the Portuguese squad.
Jose Fonte, who is the captain of the English club Southampton FC, has received his first call up after being very consistent in the Premier league in the recent times. A couple of other uncapped players are there in the squad too in the name of Joao Mario and Ivo Pinto.
Some experienced guys including Ricardo Carvalho have also found place in the squad.
Carvalho’s name there has been a little bit of a surprise though having in mind that the centre-half is in his late thirties now and hasn’t played any football at the international level for the past few years.