“Cristiano Ronaldo, of course.” Benfica forward Gonçalo Ramos is running through the list of his idols in the game, but that short phrase has served as the answer to innumerable football questions over the past few years. The all-time leading scorer in the Champions League? The record marksman on the international stage? Cristiano Ronaldo, of course.
The Portugal icon looms large in the history of the sport, but some new answers are now starting to emerge. Who, for example, is the youngest Portuguese player to score a double in a Champions League knockout match? And who recently became the first man for 20 years to score a hat-trick on his maiden World Cup start? Well, that would be Gonçalo Ramos. Of course.
For that second feat, the 21-year-old first had to replace his hero in a different way: in the mind of Portugal coach Fernando Santos, and subsequently on the pitch. Ramos had barely played more than 30 minutes for his country when Santos named him in the line-up to face Switzerland in the round of 16 at Qatar 2022, a bold decision that meant dropping Ronaldo to the bench. The young Benfica ace responded with three goals and an assist in a 6-1 victory, his finishes in turn emphatic, predatory and impish.
Many would have wilted due to the scale of the occasion, the responsibility and the global media glare – not to mention their displeased idol looking on from the sidelines. However, Ramos seems to thrive when the pressure dials are turned up. “A player without attitude, belief and confidence in what he wants and what he’s doing on the pitch is a longer way from the top,” he says. “Mentality guides everything. Without a good mindset, there’s no attitude. You won’t have the mind or the willingness to iron out the small details that need to be perfected.”
That mental fortitude helped make Ramos the answer to a conundrum at club level too, Benfica having tasked him with spearheading their attack this season following the departure of Darwin Núñez. The Olhão native has served the Eagles’ cause since the age of 12, notably finishing joint-top scorer in the 2019/20 UEFA Youth League and scoring twice in the final as Benfica lost 3-2 to Real Madrid. He also impressed as a second striker last term, but he is thrilled to be operating as the focal point of Roger Schmidt’s 4-2-3-1.
“Cristiano Ronaldo, of course.” Benfica forward Gonçalo Ramos is running through the list of his idols in the game, but that short phrase has served as the answer to innumerable football questions over the past few years. The all-time leading scorer in the Champions League? The record marksman on the international stage? Cristiano Ronaldo, of course.
The Portugal icon looms large in the history of the sport, but some new answers are now starting to emerge. Who, for example, is the youngest Portuguese player to score a double in a Champions League knockout match? And who recently became the first man for 20 years to score a hat-trick on his maiden World Cup start? Well, that would be Gonçalo Ramos. Of course.
For that second feat, the 21-year-old first had to replace his hero in a different way: in the mind of Portugal coach Fernando Santos, and subsequently on the pitch. Ramos had barely played more than 30 minutes for his country when Santos named him in the line-up to face Switzerland in the round of 16 at Qatar 2022, a bold decision that meant dropping Ronaldo to the bench. The young Benfica ace responded with three goals and an assist in a 6-1 victory, his finishes in turn emphatic, predatory and impish.
Many would have wilted due to the scale of the occasion, the responsibility and the global media glare – not to mention their displeased idol looking on from the sidelines. However, Ramos seems to thrive when the pressure dials are turned up. “A player without attitude, belief and confidence in what he wants and what he’s doing on the pitch is a longer way from the top,” he says. “Mentality guides everything. Without a good mindset, there’s no attitude. You won’t have the mind or the willingness to iron out the small details that need to be perfected.”
That mental fortitude helped make Ramos the answer to a conundrum at club level too, Benfica having tasked him with spearheading their attack this season following the departure of Darwin Núñez. The Olhão native has served the Eagles’ cause since the age of 12, notably finishing joint-top scorer in the 2019/20 UEFA Youth League and scoring twice in the final as Benfica lost 3-2 to Real Madrid. He also impressed as a second striker last term, but he is thrilled to be operating as the focal point of Roger Schmidt’s 4-2-3-1.
“My best role in the team is to lead the attack, as a No9,” he explains. “I enjoyed playing in a support role with Darwin leading our attack last season. It was an effective partnership; Darwin scored something like 35 goals and I exploited the space around the edge of the box. I thought we flourished, but now I have the opportunity to lead the line.”
He has been proving that on a regular basis, rattling in 17 goals in Benfica’s first 25 league games of the campaign. And the fan of Robert Lewandowski and Zlatan Ibrahimović has made his mark in Europe too, picking up where he left off last season. Ramos buried his maiden Champions League strike as the Eagles exited to Liverpool in the 2021/22 quarter-finals, and he settled back into the competition with a hat-trick against Midtjylland in the third qualifying round, followed by a goal against Dynamo Kyiv in the play-offs.
“These are the matches we all want to play in,” he says. “It was vital to start the season well and there’s no player who starts well if the team doesn’t start well. That helped me and I ended up scoring and helping the team, which was important for me.”
Then came his headed opener in the defeat of Maccabi Haifa that confirmed Benfica as Group H winners ahead of Paris Saint-Germain. But he topped all that with two goals and an assist in the round of 16 decider against Club Brugge, his first effort in the 5-1 victory a slaloming run past a series of lunging tackles before a swivel to stab in the ball. His second, a neat finish following a near-post run, underlined his instincts as a centre-forward.
“The new system really suits me,” he adds. “The ideas and tactics that the coach has brought not only suit me but every player. The coach also spoke to me about what he wants and he saw my role as a No9 in his system. As you can see, it’s worked out well.”
Crucially however, his experience in a more withdrawn role last season has expanded his toolkit as a player, while instilling the need to graft for the team. “Many people think, ‘OK, he is a centre-forward, he just needs to score and nothing else matters.’ But, especially in recent years, this image is disappearing and it’s increasingly important for the centre-forward to be more in the game, contributing more with link-up play, pressing high up the pitch, and many times assuming another role with other kinds of tasks.”
There may be room for improvement but Ramos still has plenty of time on his side. More importantly, he appears committed to learning from any mistakes. But how so, exactly? “I try to make the most of training sessions,” he says. “The coaches help me and I always watch my matches and the things I didn’t do so well. In each game I try to improve on what I did less well in the match before.” Which is the right answer – of course.
“Cristiano Ronaldo, of course.” Benfica forward Gonçalo Ramos is running through the list of his idols in the game, but that short phrase has served as the answer to innumerable football questions over the past few years. The all-time leading scorer in the Champions League? The record marksman on the international stage? Cristiano Ronaldo, of course.
The Portugal icon looms large in the history of the sport, but some new answers are now starting to emerge. Who, for example, is the youngest Portuguese player to score a double in a Champions League knockout match? And who recently became the first man for 20 years to score a hat-trick on his maiden World Cup start? Well, that would be Gonçalo Ramos. Of course.
For that second feat, the 21-year-old first had to replace his hero in a different way: in the mind of Portugal coach Fernando Santos, and subsequently on the pitch. Ramos had barely played more than 30 minutes for his country when Santos named him in the line-up to face Switzerland in the round of 16 at Qatar 2022, a bold decision that meant dropping Ronaldo to the bench. The young Benfica ace responded with three goals and an assist in a 6-1 victory, his finishes in turn emphatic, predatory and impish.
Many would have wilted due to the scale of the occasion, the responsibility and the global media glare – not to mention their displeased idol looking on from the sidelines. However, Ramos seems to thrive when the pressure dials are turned up. “A player without attitude, belief and confidence in what he wants and what he’s doing on the pitch is a longer way from the top,” he says. “Mentality guides everything. Without a good mindset, there’s no attitude. You won’t have the mind or the willingness to iron out the small details that need to be perfected.”
That mental fortitude helped make Ramos the answer to a conundrum at club level too, Benfica having tasked him with spearheading their attack this season following the departure of Darwin Núñez. The Olhão native has served the Eagles’ cause since the age of 12, notably finishing joint-top scorer in the 2019/20 UEFA Youth League and scoring twice in the final as Benfica lost 3-2 to Real Madrid. He also impressed as a second striker last term, but he is thrilled to be operating as the focal point of Roger Schmidt’s 4-2-3-1.
“Cristiano Ronaldo, of course.” Benfica forward Gonçalo Ramos is running through the list of his idols in the game, but that short phrase has served as the answer to innumerable football questions over the past few years. The all-time leading scorer in the Champions League? The record marksman on the international stage? Cristiano Ronaldo, of course.
The Portugal icon looms large in the history of the sport, but some new answers are now starting to emerge. Who, for example, is the youngest Portuguese player to score a double in a Champions League knockout match? And who recently became the first man for 20 years to score a hat-trick on his maiden World Cup start? Well, that would be Gonçalo Ramos. Of course.
For that second feat, the 21-year-old first had to replace his hero in a different way: in the mind of Portugal coach Fernando Santos, and subsequently on the pitch. Ramos had barely played more than 30 minutes for his country when Santos named him in the line-up to face Switzerland in the round of 16 at Qatar 2022, a bold decision that meant dropping Ronaldo to the bench. The young Benfica ace responded with three goals and an assist in a 6-1 victory, his finishes in turn emphatic, predatory and impish.
Many would have wilted due to the scale of the occasion, the responsibility and the global media glare – not to mention their displeased idol looking on from the sidelines. However, Ramos seems to thrive when the pressure dials are turned up. “A player without attitude, belief and confidence in what he wants and what he’s doing on the pitch is a longer way from the top,” he says. “Mentality guides everything. Without a good mindset, there’s no attitude. You won’t have the mind or the willingness to iron out the small details that need to be perfected.”
That mental fortitude helped make Ramos the answer to a conundrum at club level too, Benfica having tasked him with spearheading their attack this season following the departure of Darwin Núñez. The Olhão native has served the Eagles’ cause since the age of 12, notably finishing joint-top scorer in the 2019/20 UEFA Youth League and scoring twice in the final as Benfica lost 3-2 to Real Madrid. He also impressed as a second striker last term, but he is thrilled to be operating as the focal point of Roger Schmidt’s 4-2-3-1.
“Cristiano Ronaldo, of course.” Benfica forward Gonçalo Ramos is running through the list of his idols in the game, but that short phrase has served as the answer to innumerable football questions over the past few years. The all-time leading scorer in the Champions League? The record marksman on the international stage? Cristiano Ronaldo, of course.
The Portugal icon looms large in the history of the sport, but some new answers are now starting to emerge. Who, for example, is the youngest Portuguese player to score a double in a Champions League knockout match? And who recently became the first man for 20 years to score a hat-trick on his maiden World Cup start? Well, that would be Gonçalo Ramos. Of course.
For that second feat, the 21-year-old first had to replace his hero in a different way: in the mind of Portugal coach Fernando Santos, and subsequently on the pitch. Ramos had barely played more than 30 minutes for his country when Santos named him in the line-up to face Switzerland in the round of 16 at Qatar 2022, a bold decision that meant dropping Ronaldo to the bench. The young Benfica ace responded with three goals and an assist in a 6-1 victory, his finishes in turn emphatic, predatory and impish.
Many would have wilted due to the scale of the occasion, the responsibility and the global media glare – not to mention their displeased idol looking on from the sidelines. However, Ramos seems to thrive when the pressure dials are turned up. “A player without attitude, belief and confidence in what he wants and what he’s doing on the pitch is a longer way from the top,” he says. “Mentality guides everything. Without a good mindset, there’s no attitude. You won’t have the mind or the willingness to iron out the small details that need to be perfected.”
That mental fortitude helped make Ramos the answer to a conundrum at club level too, Benfica having tasked him with spearheading their attack this season following the departure of Darwin Núñez. The Olhão native has served the Eagles’ cause since the age of 12, notably finishing joint-top scorer in the 2019/20 UEFA Youth League and scoring twice in the final as Benfica lost 3-2 to Real Madrid. He also impressed as a second striker last term, but he is thrilled to be operating as the focal point of Roger Schmidt’s 4-2-3-1.
“My best role in the team is to lead the attack, as a No9,” he explains. “I enjoyed playing in a support role with Darwin leading our attack last season. It was an effective partnership; Darwin scored something like 35 goals and I exploited the space around the edge of the box. I thought we flourished, but now I have the opportunity to lead the line.”
He has been proving that on a regular basis, rattling in 17 goals in Benfica’s first 25 league games of the campaign. And the fan of Robert Lewandowski and Zlatan Ibrahimović has made his mark in Europe too, picking up where he left off last season. Ramos buried his maiden Champions League strike as the Eagles exited to Liverpool in the 2021/22 quarter-finals, and he settled back into the competition with a hat-trick against Midtjylland in the third qualifying round, followed by a goal against Dynamo Kyiv in the play-offs.
“These are the matches we all want to play in,” he says. “It was vital to start the season well and there’s no player who starts well if the team doesn’t start well. That helped me and I ended up scoring and helping the team, which was important for me.”
Then came his headed opener in the defeat of Maccabi Haifa that confirmed Benfica as Group H winners ahead of Paris Saint-Germain. But he topped all that with two goals and an assist in the round of 16 decider against Club Brugge, his first effort in the 5-1 victory a slaloming run past a series of lunging tackles before a swivel to stab in the ball. His second, a neat finish following a near-post run, underlined his instincts as a centre-forward.
“The new system really suits me,” he adds. “The ideas and tactics that the coach has brought not only suit me but every player. The coach also spoke to me about what he wants and he saw my role as a No9 in his system. As you can see, it’s worked out well.”
Crucially however, his experience in a more withdrawn role last season has expanded his toolkit as a player, while instilling the need to graft for the team. “Many people think, ‘OK, he is a centre-forward, he just needs to score and nothing else matters.’ But, especially in recent years, this image is disappearing and it’s increasingly important for the centre-forward to be more in the game, contributing more with link-up play, pressing high up the pitch, and many times assuming another role with other kinds of tasks.”
There may be room for improvement but Ramos still has plenty of time on his side. More importantly, he appears committed to learning from any mistakes. But how so, exactly? “I try to make the most of training sessions,” he says. “The coaches help me and I always watch my matches and the things I didn’t do so well. In each game I try to improve on what I did less well in the match before.” Which is the right answer – of course.
“Cristiano Ronaldo, of course.” Benfica forward Gonçalo Ramos is running through the list of his idols in the game, but that short phrase has served as the answer to innumerable football questions over the past few years. The all-time leading scorer in the Champions League? The record marksman on the international stage? Cristiano Ronaldo, of course.
The Portugal icon looms large in the history of the sport, but some new answers are now starting to emerge. Who, for example, is the youngest Portuguese player to score a double in a Champions League knockout match? And who recently became the first man for 20 years to score a hat-trick on his maiden World Cup start? Well, that would be Gonçalo Ramos. Of course.
For that second feat, the 21-year-old first had to replace his hero in a different way: in the mind of Portugal coach Fernando Santos, and subsequently on the pitch. Ramos had barely played more than 30 minutes for his country when Santos named him in the line-up to face Switzerland in the round of 16 at Qatar 2022, a bold decision that meant dropping Ronaldo to the bench. The young Benfica ace responded with three goals and an assist in a 6-1 victory, his finishes in turn emphatic, predatory and impish.
Many would have wilted due to the scale of the occasion, the responsibility and the global media glare – not to mention their displeased idol looking on from the sidelines. However, Ramos seems to thrive when the pressure dials are turned up. “A player without attitude, belief and confidence in what he wants and what he’s doing on the pitch is a longer way from the top,” he says. “Mentality guides everything. Without a good mindset, there’s no attitude. You won’t have the mind or the willingness to iron out the small details that need to be perfected.”
That mental fortitude helped make Ramos the answer to a conundrum at club level too, Benfica having tasked him with spearheading their attack this season following the departure of Darwin Núñez. The Olhão native has served the Eagles’ cause since the age of 12, notably finishing joint-top scorer in the 2019/20 UEFA Youth League and scoring twice in the final as Benfica lost 3-2 to Real Madrid. He also impressed as a second striker last term, but he is thrilled to be operating as the focal point of Roger Schmidt’s 4-2-3-1.
