Siu, a Shove and an Empty Dugout: The Quiet Crisis of Post-Ronaldo Portugal

The final whistle had barely gone when the handshake line formed in front of the dugouts. I have watched that line for years — who holds on, who looks away, who claps a shoulder. On Thursday night, the line produced the story. Denmark's Rasmus Højlund walked toward Portugal coach Jorge Jesus and, instead of a handshake, pressed a palm into his chest. The cameras caught it. My eyes went somewhere else: to the empty seat in the Portugal dugout, the one Cristiano Ronaldo should have been sitting in. In the 53rd minute, Højlund scored Denmark's second goal, the equaliser. Then he jumped high, spread both arms, and brought his body down to the turf. The Siu. That celebration is now part of football's shared vocabulary, but it has one obvious owner — and he was not in the stadium. His absence was the loudest sound of the night. Some background matters. After the Norway match, the Portugal coach had hinted plainly that Ronaldo might be benched again against Denmark. The five-time Ballon d'Or winner left camp almost immediately after that comment. Portugal then played, without him, and beat Denmark 4-2. The scoreline offered modern Portugal its most comfortable answer — the goals were spread around, the team did not lean on one man's feet. Twenty minutes after full time, that comfortable answer was buried under a shove. Tournament cycles compress emotion. A national-team fixture means flags, songs and an exaggerated reading of every small incident. In that cycle, dry truths like squad depth are the first things lost. Portugal's question was never whether they could win without Ronaldo. It was who the team becomes without him, and who gets to answer that. I keep returning to the night the fax machine went quiet. I have spent years on this beat, sitting on Melwood's grass and standing in empty press rooms after the microphones were switched off, learning who said what and, more usefully, who said nothing. That habit taught me that the most important information from a big match rarely sits on the scoresheet. It sits on a dugout chair, in a handshake line, on the other side of a dressing-room door. I listen for the pause between the final whistle and the roar. The scoreline does not say what happened Four goals push a team toward a rushed conclusion. The match was built differently. Portugal led, Denmark came back; Portugal led again, and in the 53rd minute Højlund wiped it out again. So the real test without Ronaldo was never scoring. It was holding a lead. Twice ahead and twice pegged back points to a defence that loses control and a midfield that takes too long to recover after losing the ball. And yet 4-2. The last two goals arrived after the 53rd-minute blow, once the bench had restored order. That spread is the actual finding: post-Ronaldo Portugal does not suffer a crisis of confidence, it suffers a crisis of rhythm. Once the rhythm goes, it takes them time to return, and that window is the opponent's opening. There is a dry truth on Denmark's side too, buried under the noise of Højlund's leap. A team that equalises twice knows how to change a match's tempo but cannot seize the moment that wins it. Those teams are dangerous in a tournament because they do not lose — they simply leave victories behind. Ownership of a celebration The Siu is no longer only a celebration; it is a brand. For two decades one man built a piece of body language, and now anyone can borrow it — but borrowing raises the question of who is imitating whom. I remember last March at Parken in Copenhagen, when Højlund scored and did exactly this celebration. The debate then was whether it was respect or a needle. It was never settled, because both can be true. When a celebration becomes someone else's, the original owner's authority wobbles. Ronaldo was not on the pitch, but his language was — in the opposition's shirt. That is why Højlund's leap travelled into the handshake line. The matter is not physical, it is symbolic. The shove was not the strength of Højlund's hand. It was the last word of an unfinished sentence. I have seen many times that players challenge their own past rather than their opponent. To a striker of Højlund's age, Ronaldo is both a childhood poster and a present rival. That tension is what spills out as an exaggerated reaction. Højlund's own war This is where the story becomes harder than simple revenge. When a young striker moves to a big club, carries a large expectation and loses form, the floor of his self-belief cracks. For Højlund, now a Napoli striker, the question is not talent but consistency — and consistency is largely a game of the mind. I have watched many injury comebacks where the body returns first and the head follows later. After cruciate or muscle injuries, players come back, run, sometimes look quicker than before — but in front of the ball they hesitate for a beat, and that beat changes everything. Those rushed back too soon often have their second act taken from them. That reading also lights up Højlund's celebration. An overdone joy after a goal is not always hostility; often it is a peace treaty with oneself. Players who return while fighting their own doubt tend to shout a little too loudly. Bench, ego and management The coach's decision may have been professionally sound — tournament pressure demands rotation and rest for a star. But when the decision surfaces publicly before kick-off, it stops being rotation arithmetic and becomes a display of power. With Jorge Jesus, that is where it gets complicated. Hinting in front of reporters that a legend will be benched is not faith in the legend; it is faith in one's own authority. And that is exactly where the camp exit comes from. Calling it anger is easy, but it is really an accounting of dignity. For a man who has been the national team's face for two decades, the difference between a place on the bench and a wait outside the door is clear. He may accept the wait. Accepting the symbol of being overlooked is another matter. Here the broadcast stops and the story begins. There is a rhythm in the locker room no broadcast ever captures — who leaves first, who leaves late, whose shirt ends up in whose bag. Ronaldo's absence opened a gap in that rhythm, and what the others did inside that gap is the truest read on Portugal. The revenge story is the easiest, so it is the wrong one The social-media version is simple: Ronaldo was benched, Ronaldo left camp, so Højlund copied his celebration and shoved the Portugal coach. Two plus two. The trouble is that life rarely adds up that way. Højlund and Ronaldo have never shared a dressing room. There is no direct ledger of debt or resentment between them. So revenge against whom? The shove probably came from something inside the match — a touchline word, a bench comment, the frustration of the result. Learning which requires interviews and patience, and social media has no patience. This is my main objection. The revenge story erases Højlund's own struggle, hides Denmark's match-management weakness, and sidesteps Portugal's structural question. By making one shove the central event, we skip the actual events. Another thing nobody asks: what Portugal's bench said to Højlund during the match. Touchline words never make the cameras, yet they build the foundation of a full-time shove. Until that part is known, the word revenge is a guess, not a finding. What the broadcast did not show Television showed two images: a leap, a shove. It did not show the silence in Denmark's dressing room after full time, or how Portugal's young players celebrated around Ronaldo's empty place, or the staff — the kit man, the physio, the travel-desk people — who form the invisible scaffolding of every match. Years on this beat have taught me the real news usually lives on that invisible layer. My notebooks hold few match photographs but many descriptions of rooms. Who gives up a dugout chair, who keeps it, who comes back and sits down — these small rituals reveal a squad's internal order. Portugal's empty chair was a sentence too, perhaps the clearest one of the night. What to watch next Three things are worth tracking at the next camp. Whether Ronaldo returns, and in what role. Whether a federation or a European governing body acts on the shove, since incidents in the handshake line tend to draw administrative attention. And how the succession is being managed inside Portugal: the young are taking ground, but the old face is still standing in the doorway. Denmark carry a question too. If Højlund is criticised for this, the pressure on him grows — and for a striker already fighting for consistency, extra pressure means extra delay. Good coaches know that publicly punishing a young player's mistake usually damages the team. The real transfer story is rarely the fee; it is the farewell. That has not changed from the days when news stopped at a printed page and some people waited outside a door. The night's biggest question is not about the shove. It is this: when a national team learns to play without its biggest face, whom does it thank, and whom does it forget? The empty dugout chair may be filled next match. Who sits in it, and for how long, nobody has answered yet.