Neville reacts to footage of Ronaldo crying after Portugal star denies World Cup speculation

Gary Neville has described footage of former Manchester United striker Cristiano Ronaldo crying in the tunnel after Portugal’s defeat by Morocco as “a horrible image”.

The North Africans produced another huge shock to dump Portugal out of the World Cup as Youssef En-Nesyri scored the only goal of the game on Saturday in a 1-0 loss for Ronaldo and his team-mates.

And cameras captured the five-time Ballon d’Or winner crying as he walked off down the tunnel with Ronaldo appearing in the last World Cup of his career.

Neville has a lot of sympathy for Ronaldo, despite the Portugal star insisting he is not friends with his former Man Utd team-mate and described the image of him sobbing in the tunnel as “a horrible image”.

“I do want to mention Cristiano Ronaldo because I saw that image of him crying in the tunnel,” Neville said on his Sky Sports podcast.

“That was a horrible image for me. That’s that moment where he knows his dream of winning the World Cup for his country has gone.

“We’ve all been there at the end of our careers, but he’s one of the greatest, if not the greatest player of all time. It was horrible to see him like that. He’s had a tough couple of months.”

There were rumors that Ronaldo ‘threatened to leave the national team’ after he was left out of Portugal’s clash against Switzerland in the group stage.

And Ronaldo has hit back at the speculation and put his feelings down on Instagram after his final World Cup ended in disappointment.

Ronaldo wrote: “Winning a World Cup for Portugal was the biggest and most ambitious dream of my career.

“Fortunately, I won many titles of international dimension, including for Portugal, but putting the name of our country on the biggest one in the world was my biggest dream.

“I battled for it. I fought hard for this dream. In the five presences that I scored in World Cups over 16 years, always alongside great players and supported by millions of Portuguese people, I gave it my all.

“I left everything on the pitch. I never gave up the fight or dream. Unfortunately, yesterday the dream ended.

“It is not worth reacting too hot. I just want everyone to know that much has been said, much has been written, much has been speculated, but my dedication to Portugal has never changed for an instant.

“I was always one more person fighting for everyone’s goal, and I would never turn my back on my teammates and my country.

“For now, there’s not much more to say. Thank you, Portugal. Thank you, Qatar. The dream was beautiful while it lasted… Now, it’s time to allow history to tell the story and for each one to draw their own conclusions.”