DOHA, Qatar Imagine having half a billion friends and still being lonely. Imagine being the man everyone came to see yet being stuck on the bench. Imagine being Cristiano Ronaldo and not being ? Not now Portugal National Team Pro Shop, not anymore, not after the most famous soccer player on the planet lives through the latest reminder that his unique life and extraordinary career has undergone a sudden, undeniable and maybe irreversible is still as famous as ever, and his Instagram followers tally will probably have tacked on another mil by the time you finish this column. He's still the hottest ticket in town at this World 's still good-looking, as he said in a pre-tournament interview, still center of attention, still one of the greatest to lace them a new normal has arrived for Ronaldo. Astonishing as it sounds, he's surplus to requirements. Not wanted, at least not how he wants to be wanted. The tipping point has been reached, where his ego and eccentricity and alpha ways became more trouble than they are wasn't wanted at Manchester United, which was looking to offload him even before he lit up the club and the coaches and the players in that infamous Piers Morgan 's not wanted by Paris St. Germain, not wanted back at Real Madrid, not wanted by his old team Sporting Lisbon, not wanted for round two at Juventus, not wanted by any of the Champions League elite that would have mortgaged everything for him two years ago. He's a mid-season free agent, and looks most likely to join Al-Nassr in Saudi stunningly, on a Portugal team that will be an overwhelming favorite to reach the World Cup semifinal round when it takes on Morocco on Saturday https://www.portugalworldcupshop.com/collections/tomas-lemos-araujo-jersey, he's not wanted as anything more than a substitute, and a Portugal a BETTER team WITHOUT Cristiano Ronaldo playing? Relegated to the bench on Tuesday, Ronaldo looked on as his replacement Gonalo Ramos struck a glorious hat-trick and the team won 6-1 against Switzerland. Ronaldo made a late cameo as sub, and was the first Portugal player to head down the tunnel as the team celebrated afterward on the vs. Switzerland Recap: Gonalo Ramos starts over Ronaldo and records a hat trickWhat must this feel like? Ronaldo has always said that winning the World Cup for Portugal would be different from doing it for Argentina or Germany or Spain, where such things have happened before and where, due to factors of population and infrastructure, the talent pipeline usually runs must it be to have striven for a World Cup title your entire career, only to know now that the best chance of it happening is probably if you stay on the sideline?"Amazing day for Portugal, " he shared on social media. "A historic result in the biggest event in world football."