His teammates on Portugal's national team would rather talk about anyone except superstar Cristiano Ronaldo.

On the day Ronaldo was summoned to appear before a Spanish judge on accusations of tax fraud, defender Pepe and coach Fernando Santos tried to pretend the story simply didn't exist.

Pepe waxed lyrical about a coach he'd worked with briefly 14 years ago. Santos nattered about friendly phone calls with a player from his Porto days.

When the pair did have to discuss their megastar, they kept it general. Legal problems? Ronaldo barely gives them a thought, they suggested.

"Cristiano is one more player who is completely motivated to help Portugal as he has always done," Pepe said.

"Tomorrow we have a very important game with Russia," Santos said with a pained expression when asked about Ronaldo.

"All the players are concentrated on the Russian game and Cristiano Ronaldo is extremely concentrated with the Russian game which we will play tomorrow."

When the man himself emerged for training at Moscow's Spartak stadium, he ignored waiting journalists before giving his teammates a quick nod and starting a ball-juggling drill.

Ronaldo has denied any wrongdoing. The accusations against him have been followed by intense speculation that he wants to leave Real Madrid.

One man is happy to talk about Ronaldo - Russia forward Fyodor Smolov. Having a megastar in the team is a luxury, opined the 27-year-old Krasnodar striker.

"We don't have a guy who could compete with (Lionel) Messi or Cristiano for the Ballon d'Or, but I don't think we need a guy like that," Smolov said.

"It's hard to build a united team when you have someone like that on the team because everything revolves around him."

Associated Press

(China Daily 06/22/2017 page24)