Portugal And Ronaldo’s World Cup Dream Takes Big Hit As Veteran Defender Pepe Is Out With Covid

Portugal defender Pepe will miss their World Cup playoff semi-final against Turkey on Thursday after testing positive for COVID-19, the Portuguese Football Federation said.

The 39-year-old's absence means the former European champions will be without their two first-choice centre backs for the clash at Porto, with Ruben Dias ruled out due to a hamstring injury.

Portugal will be without these players against Turkey:

-Renato Sanches
-Anthony Lopes
-Rúben Dias
-Nélson Semedo
-Pepe
-João Cancelo
-Rúben Neves

Still plenty of time left for someone else to drop out due to injury or COVID.

— Zach Lowy (@ZachLowy) March 22, 2022

Head coach Fernando Santos has called up Lille defender Tiago Djalo as a replacement for Pepe.

Pepe has been ruled out for Portugal WCQ play-off after testing positive for Covid-19 ❌

With Ruben Dias also out on injury, Portugal will be without their two first-choice center-backs pic.twitter.com/gVDuL96Hjn

— International Champions Cup (@IntChampionsCup) March 21, 2022

The winners of the match will face either Italy or North Macedonia five days later in a game that will determine one of the last three spots left for European teams at Qatar 2022, which kicks off in November.

(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Rutherford)