With a trip to Switzerland on the cards, the Portugal national team has already begun its road to the next World Cup without injured Cristiano Ronaldo. This past Thursday, they played a friendly match against Gibraltar before traveling to the Swiss country and got a convincing victory with skipper Nani as their leader, the Valencia player scored a brace in the 5-0 victory and gave a great match that filled Portugal with confidence. 

The main problem is that the next match against Switzerland, will be the first they play in the World Cup qualifiers and it will be without injured Cristiano Ronaldo. The Portugal star is still recovering from the knee ligament injury he suffered against France in the Euros final. But according to Nani and what we saw last Thursday, it kind of looks like this squad can cope with CR7's absence, but we'll see next Tuesday. 

After the match, Nani spoke to the press: "I am very pleased with the team performance. I think we did a good job but we are aware that the next game [a World Cup qualifier against Switzerland] will be much more difficult and certainly we will have to give much more. We have shown that we have a strong team, a team that is confident. Of course, Cristiano Ronaldo and Renato Sanches are very important but we have to adapt to the absence of these players. We have players who are able to give a good answer as I have demonstrated."

Photo credit: Portugal