After Georgia-Portugal (ended 2-0), Giorgio Chiellini analyzed a Sky Sports the performance of Cristiano Ronaldo and of Rafa Leao: “I liked Cristiano Ronaldo in the other matches, because I think he is more useful than Gonçalo Ramos for Portugal, I don’t think that Leao is his best partner but that Jota is much more functional to his game because they can exchange positions Leao, on the other hand, always makes an extra touch that throws him off course. He’s not the right player for Ronaldo and vice versa. But Martinez is there to do that job, so it’s right that he chooses him.”
“But is Leao one of those we are waiting for and sooner or later he will arrive, or should he be a little further ahead on certain things?”, the question from Fabio Caressa from the Sky studios. Here is Chiellini’s answer: “We would all like him to be a little further but it’s not. And this seems clear to me: he lacks numbers more than anything else and the potential is so unexpressed for now. I don’t know, I don’t know if he will ever be able to make the click in his head. To date, in my opinion he is a good substitute rather than a permanent starter for a team aiming to win the European championship like the Champions League. If you compare him to Vinicius and Mbappé… how can you say that he is at that level. I mean, he’s strong. We are talking about 100-150 million, if that is the level of comparison, it is not. If you tell me instead he is a great player, he is good yes, we all know it. But if you want to raise the bar and compare it to those there, in my opinion it’s not there yet. But those win the trophies in the end. The others are part of a winning team. They are two different things in my opinion.”