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Eight years after England fans branded Cristiano Ronaldo the biggest winker in football for getting Wayne Rooney sent off at the World Cup, the sex therapist wife of Portugal keeper Rui Patricio has a plan.

She reckons the national team will have a better chance of success if coach Fernando Santos urges his players to... masturbate.

Vera Ribeiro, a psychologist who specialises in sexual matters, has published a book in which she examines the love lives of footballers.

Entitled 'Manual of Seduction', Dr Ribeiro argues that players will be able to cope with anxiety and stress much better during the tournament if they indulge themselves regularly.

She insists that “nothing positive comes from sexual abstinence” - and that forbidding players to make love before games also has a negative impact.

(Image: Instagram/Vera.Ribeiro.psi) (Image: AFP)

Dr Ribeiro, appearing on a Portuguese TV programme to plug her book, added: “The football player should not abstain from having sex before games, but we also know that in terms of routine they are not in contact with families either.

“We can not associate sports performance with the occurrence of sex.”

(Image: REUTERS)

Rui Patricio will be Portugal's No.1 in Russia and is a target for Premier League-bound Wolves.

The Molineux club have had a £16million bid rejected by Sporting Lisbon for the 30-year-old, who is one of a number of players demanding to be released from their contracts following a row with the club's owner Bruno de Carvalho after fans attacked the squad at the training ground.