His name is Gonçalo Ramos. The spotlight is now his.

A large portion of the crowd had turned up expecting to see him, after all. So as the clock ticked past the hour mark and Switzerland valiantly scrambled in a goal to cut the deficit to 4-1, the fans called for Portugal’s victory cigar. “Ro-nall-do! Ro-nall-do!” they chanted over and over.

Santos, annoyed at the lost shutout and the lax defending that had allowed it, tuned it out as he prowled the grass in front of the dugout. He shouted. He pointed. He scowled. He did not, however, summon Ronaldo.

When Ramos got his third goal, though — Portugal’s fifth — the old coach gave in to the crowd and the sentiment and the story line. Ronaldo was told to get his jersey on, to get ready. With a thin smile, he strode forward, accepted the captain’s armband from Pepe, stepped across the touch line and bathed in the belated adoration.

He then nearly gave the fans what they wanted, finding the net on a breakaway 10 minutes after coming on. But he had been yards offside at the start of his run, and the goal was correctly scrubbed away. A second chance three minutes later momentarily lifted the fans off their seats again, but this time Ronaldo failed to put it away, and he was offside again anyway.

It hardly mattered at that point. When the whistle blew he shook some hands and offered a few waves and made a beeline for the tunnel, not even breaking stride when he past Santos, his coach. There was nothing to say anyway, really.

Santos said later that there was no issue inside the team, or with his star player. “I have a close relationship with him,” he said. “I always have.” They have known one another since Ronaldo was 19, he pointed out, and they never “misinterpret” one another.

“I have three players I fully trust,” he said of Ronaldo, Ramos and André Silva, “and for each match I will use whatever I believe is the best.”