Preview of the 2022 World Cup, Portugal vs Ghana: Forget the Ronaldo Controversy, It's Time to Enjoy This Fierce Duel

The Portuguese national team (Instagram @selecaoportugal)

JAKARTA - Portugal wants the world to pay attention only to the quality of its football when it faces Ghana in its opening match at the 2022 World Cup on Thursday night, rather than continuing to dwell on the controversy over Cristiano Ronaldo, who has been weaned by Manchester United following his controversial interview criticizing the club and its coach.

The Euro 2016 champions beat Nigeria 4-0 in the final warm-up before flying to Qatar to cheer their fans up a bit after seeing a run of poor form before that.

But Ghana, who reached the quarter-finals of the 2016 World Cup, entered the Qatar World Cup arena equally encouraging after beating Switzerland 2-0 in a friendly.

Launching Antara, the match at the 974 Stadium in Doha will be fierce because both teams want to immediately reap full points considering that their opponents in Group H are Uruguay, whose squad is full of stars, and South Korea who always appear insistent.

Portugal coach Fernando Santos has been under pressure after recently being knocked out of the last 16 of Euro 2020 last year. Now, the team's worries are growing after the attention is too focused on Ronaldo, who is 37 years old and has passed his prime.

Regarding this, Ronaldo the captain, emphasized, "The atmosphere in the dressing room is very good. There is no problem." The five-time Ballon D'Or winner asked that the focus of the media and the public be directed to the team, not to the controversy surrounding him. "Stop asking questions about me," said Ronaldo as quoted by Reuters.

Now Ronaldo is definitely no longer playing for Manchester United and he and his team can focus on the World Cup.

The captain himself is ready to lead Portugal to repeat the success of Euro 2016 where they won, especially since the Qatar World Cup is his last chance to lift the World Cup trophy.

Portugal and Ronaldo will now focus on a Ghana side featuring Arsenal midfielder Thomas Partey, Leicester City defender Daniel Amartey and Athletic Bilbao striker Inaki Williams.

Coach Otto Addo, who is Ghana's third manager in 12 months, has been trying to rebuild the team after a poor run at the Africa Cup of Nations in early 2022. He has now brought in even more European legions including Brighton & Hove Albion full-back Tariq Lamptey.

However, both of his main goalkeepers were injured, and had to switch to a third option for Lawrence Ati-Zigi who plays at St Gallen in Switzerland.

Ghana won seven of its last eight matches. They only lost to Brazil at that time.

Prediction of the first eleven players

Portugal (4-3-3): Diogo Costa; Joao Cancelo, Pepe, Ruben Dias, Raphael Guerreiro; Ruben Neves, William Carvalho, Bruno Fernandes; Bernardo Silva, Cristiano Ronaldo, Rafael Leao.

Ghana (4-2-3-1): Lawrence Ati Zigi; Tariq Lamptey, Daniel Amartey, Alexander Djiku, Abdul Rahman Baba; Thomas Partey, Salis Abdul Samed; Kamaldeen Sulemana, Mohammed Kudus, Jordan Ayew; Inaki Williams.

Important statistics for both teams

Portugal and Ghana met once in a World Cup atmosphere when they faced each other at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. At that time John Boye's own goal and Cristiano Ronaldo's goal determined Portugal's 2-1 victory in the group stage.

Portugal's best achievement in the World Cup was third in 1966. Portugal had always entered the finals in the previous five tournaments in a row and entered the knockout stages three times in 2006, 2010, and 2018.

Ghana is appearing in their fourth World Cup finals after qualifying three times in a row between 2006 and 2014 but failed to take part in Russia four years ago. They have reached the knockout stages twice and finished in the quarter-finals once in 2010 which is their best.

Before this Portugal has met five African teams in the World Cup five times. The result, was three wins, one draw, and a 1-3 loss against Morocco in 1986.

Ghana reached the semifinals of the 2010 World Cup thanks to Asamoah Gyan's last-gasp penalty, but unfortunately, the striker failed to score against Uruguay as the Black Stars lost on penalties.