Cristiano Ronaldo has been warned that South Korea players could have revenge on their minds ahead of their World Cup clash against Portugal.
The two countries will go head to head in the last round of the Group H matches.
Going into the game, Portugal’s place in the last 16 is already secured and will top the group if they avoid defeat.
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South Korea meanwhile need to win to have the slightest chance of sneaking through.
Ahead of the match, Portugal boss Fernando Santos was reminded that the South Korean players could be targeting Ronaldo due to an incident that occurred when the 37-year-old was playing at Juventus.
The Turin club went on a pre-season tour to Asia back in 2019, during the tour, they were up against Tottenham in Singapore and Inter Milan in China.
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Ronaldo played and scored in both games.
However, for the South Korean leg of the trip, Ronaldo didn’t play against the K-League All Stars, which did not go down well amongst the 63,000 fans who turned up in a bid to watch one of the biggest stars in football history.
Prior to the clash on Friday, Santos was told by a Korean journalist in his pre-match press conference that Korean people are still ‘disappointed and angered’ by Ronaldo’s no-show and that the squad has been asked to seek revenge.
“Well you have to ask Juventus and Ronaldo about that,” Santos replied.
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“He went there with Juventus and that affects our match tomorrow how? I have huge respect for Korea and the Korean people and I’m sure Ronaldo does too.”
The Portugal manager later revealed Ronaldo could even miss the match against South Korea as Santos is managing the five-time Ballon d’Or winner’s workload and the chances of him playing have been rated as ’50/50’.
Santos also revealed that his squad has enough quality to replace Ronaldo when the former Manchester United player calls time on his international career, he said: “Well you can see in the past two games he was substituted, so we have a plan of course.”
Featured Image Credit: AlamyTopics: Cristiano Ronaldo, Portugal, South Korea, Football, Football World Cup