Portugal coach stays mum on Cristiano Ronaldo’s potential start after lackluster World Cup opener

HOUSTON (AP) — Portugal coach Roberto Martínez wouldn’t say if Cristiano Ronaldo would start Tuesday’s World Cup match against Uzbekistan after the superstar's forgettable performance in the team’s opener.

“I can’t inform you about the starting 11 because I haven’t informed my players,” Martínez said Monday when asked if Ronaldo would remain in the lineup.

The 41-year-old Ronaldo failed to score in Portugal’s 1-1 draw with Congo.

Television pundits and social media users criticized Ronaldo after he missed on a couple of good scoring chances in the second half. Some wondered why Martínez didn’t substitute him in the second half with the team struggling offensively.

Martínez said criticism does not impact his team and said such talk is part of being in an event of this magnitude.

“We are playing a World Cup so of course we have a lot of noise and tension, but it’s part of the game,” he said. “The focus is on the team and we want to show a positive attitude … to be ready for the match. We are very much focused. We are strong. The team is even more united than before.”

While not specifically referring to Ronaldo, Martínez added that some of the criticism is “unfair, it’s unjust.”

Ronaldo did not speak to reporters after the game but has posted twice social media since the draw. In the first post, he wrote: “It wasn’t the start we wanted, but this is far from over. Head up and focus on the next game.”

On Sunday, he posted four pictures from a team training session and wrote: “Focused on the mission.”

Ronaldo and Argentina’s Lionel Messi became the only men to play in six World Cups with their participation this year. Ronaldo will try again Tuesday to become the first player to score in six World Cups after falling short in the opener.

He currently shares the record with Messi, who has five goals in Argentina’s two matches this year to give him a record 18 goals across five tournaments. Messi failed to score in 2010.

Despite Ronaldo’s struggles in the opener, when he had just 25 touches, Martínez remains confident in his ability to help the team finish opportunities in the final third.

“Cristiano is the best one to do that,” he said. “The numbers support this of this iconic player who is Cristiano Ronaldo. If you look at the past 32 games, he is the player that has extra movement opening spaces and finding pockets.”

Uzbekistan coach Fabio Cannavaro knows not to underestimate Ronaldo despite the results in Portugal’s first game. While his team is preparing for the team’s many stars, it is Ronaldo that he said his players must pay particular attention to.

“We need to be careful when we are in the box because we cannot leave this kind of player alone,” he said. “We need to be very focused on him because Cristiano can score in every situation, free kicks, even in the corner. So we need to be very careful.”

AP World Cup: https://apnews.com/fifa-world-cup

Portugal's Joao Cancelo (20) controls the ball while pursued byCongo's Samuel Moutoussamy (8) as Cristiano Ronaldo, center, looks on during the World Cup Group K soccer match between Portugal and Congo in Houston, Wednesday, June 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Wyke)

Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo reacts at the the end of the World Cup Group K soccer match between Portugal and Congo in Houston, Wednesday, June 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo reacts during the World Cup Group K soccer match between Portugal and Congo in Houston, Wednesday, June 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo leaves the pitch after the World Cup Group K soccer match between Portugal and Congo in Houston, Wednesday, June 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Karen Warren)

PARIS (AP) — Millions of people across Europe were exposed to extreme and exceptional high temperatures on Tuesday, with 40 fatalities from drowning recorded in France in the past week as residents seek relief from the searing heat.

Temperatures will remain high around the clock in France, the European nation the most affected so far by the early summer heat wave. The national weather service, Meteo France, placed 54 departments, about half the country, under a red heat wave alert.

Italy, Spain, and Britain were also hit.

Human-caused climate change is tied to increasingly extreme weather, and U.N. climate agency projections say the next five years should shatter more heat records.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said that the 40 people who died by drowning since last Thursday were mainly young people.

In a country without widespread air conditioning, schools, public transportation and sporting events have been impacted. Extreme conditions are expected to last at least until the end of the week, with daytime highs above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in many towns.

“Further record-breaking temperatures are expected, including some that could surpass all previous records, regardless of the time of year,” Meteo France said.

The heat wave is exceptionally intense, coming very early in the summer, “but with a still uncertain duration,” the weather service said. It has already been compared to the August 2003 heat wave, when the highest temperatures in over half a century caused an estimated 15,000 deaths, many of them among older people in apartments and retirement homes without air conditioning.

Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent, with temperatures increasing twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. Over the last four years, more than 200,000 people across Europe died from heat-related causes, and most of those deaths were preventable, the World Health Organization’s Europe office said this month.

The above-average temperatures can cause heat exhaustion and life-threatening heat stroke.

Across the English Channel from France, many British schools said they were closing for the day and trains were disrupted as the Met Office, the U.K. weather agency, issued a red extreme heat warning for Wednesday and Thursday, with forecasts suggesting June’s all-time daily temperature record could be broken.

Temperatures of around 37 degrees C (98.6 F) are expected in southern England, with up to 35 C (95 F) in southeast Wales. The peak of the heat wave is now forecast for Wednesday and Thursday, when highs could reach at least 39 C (102.2 F). Conditions are expected to ease by Friday, the Met Office said.

On Tuesday multiple train operators across the U.K. said they were canceling train services to “ensure the safe operation of the railway.” National Rail, which operates the railway infrastructure, urged people to “only travel if absolutely necessary” on Wednesday and Thursday.

Further south on the continent, Spain is facing a heat wave across various parts of the Iberian Peninsula.

Spain’s national weather service, Aemet, issued red alerts Tuesday for temperatures of 44 C (111 F) in southern Andalusia as well as warnings of thermometers hitting 40 C (104 F) in the normally temperate Cantabria and the Basque Country regions along its northern Atlantic coast.

Aemet meteorologist Rubén del Campo said Spain, which has experienced increasingly torrid summers of late, is only going to get hotter because of climate change as heatwaves become more frequent, longer and appear outside the traditional window of July and August.

Of the dozen heatwaves Aemet has recorded in the month of June since it started tracking them in 1975, half have occurred since 2015, del Campo said.

Human-driven climate change is heating up the atmosphere, both above Spain and in the surrounding sea waters, he said.

Copernicus, the EU monitoring agency found that in Europe and globally, 2024 was the hottest year on record and the continent experienced its second-highest number of “heat stress” days.

Scientists warn that climate change is exacerbating the frequency and intensity of heat and dryness, especially in southeastern Europe, making the region more vulnerable to health impacts and wildfires.

The name of the body of water between France and the U.K. has been corrected to the “English Channel.”

Associated Press journalists Sylvia Hui in London and Joseph Wilson in Barcelona, Spain, contributed to this report.

An African penguin cools off in a basin in Kronber zoo, near Frankfurt, Germany, Tuesday, June 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

A man keeps his legs dry as he cycles through standing water in London, as a heat wave is predicted Tuesday, June 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

People cool off in a water spray at the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Sunday, June 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

A family walks through a cooling water spray at the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Sunday, June 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

A man shields himself from the sun with a scarf as he walks in the garden of the Palace of Versailles, outside Paris, during a heat wave with temperatures soaring above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), Monday, June 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Tourists with an umbrella take a photo in Paris, as France is enduring a grueling heat wave with temperatures soaring above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), Monday, June 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena )

A drugstore sign shows the temperature 43 degrees Celsius (109,4 degrees Fahrenheit) in Rennes, western France, Monday, June 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Jeremias Gonzalez)