Ramos hits hat-trick as Portugal thrash Switzerland 6-1 after Ronaldo dropped

You drop Cristiano Ronaldo and the man you pick instead of him best not miss. Gonçalo Ramos is 21. He made his international debut last month. Before Tuesday he had only played 36 minutes of international football. And yet within 17 minutes he had already scored more World Cup knockout goals than Ronaldo; by midway through the second half he had completed the first hat-trick of Qatar 2022. Fernando Santos could hardly have been more obviously vindicated. Ramos, emphatically, did not miss, setting up a quarter-final against Morocco.

Santos has the rumpled air of a man who has slept in his car. He could be Peter Falk playing Columbo. He is not a man who has ever willingly done anything interesting, so when the day before the game he criticised Ronaldo for his shushing gesture after being substituted against South Korea, it felt significant. Ronaldo himself claimed it was directed at the South Korean forward Cho Gue-sung, who was trying to chivvy him off the pitch but, given similar situations at Manchester United, the widespread assumption in Portugal seems to be that it was aimed at his critics, of whom there are a growing number. A poll in the sports daily A Bola suggested 70% of readers thought he should not start against the Swiss.

It was 6,747 days since Portugal last began a live tournament match without Ronaldo, against Russia at Euro 2004. But age, it feels, has caught up with him very quickly of late. Ramos had not quite turned three when that Russia game was played. Ronaldo inevitably draws the attention, the mass of his celebrity so great that everything else is drawn into his orbit but Rúben Neves and João Cancelo were also left out having played in every group game, which perhaps hinted that Santos had recognised that Portugal had not played especially well despite sealing qualification by winning their first two games.

It was all very incongruous for a Santos team, all the more so when Manuel Akanji bundled in a corner at the back post to make it 4-1 just before the hour. Santos immediately was out to the edge of his technical area, pointing and glaring. A lot of people were having far too much fun.

Then, just one more thing, as Ronaldo was brought on for Ramos to rapturous cheers. By then, though, the applause for every touch felt pitched somewhere between pity and a disturbing hero worship. Even Ronaldo gave a slightly embarrassed grin before thumping a free-kick into the wall in time-honoured style.