Cristiano Ronaldo needed help. A lot of it, as it turned out.

The five-time world player of the year emerged from the tunnel first, leading his Portugal out for warmups. He seemingly sang the anthem the loudest, and with the most gusto, almost conducting his teammates, lined up beside him. If he hadn’t slept well, after Iran fans had apparently succeeded in keeping him awake deep into the night, it didn’t show.

This is Cristiano Ronaldo’s team.

You might even say he is the team.

View photos Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo had a penalty kick opportunity against Iran. (Getty) More

This latter-day incarnation of Portugal, the defending European champion, is desperately old in key positions. Central defenders Pepe and Jose Fonte are 35 and 34, respectively. And up front, Ricardo Quaresma is 34 and even the seemingly ageless Ronaldo is now 33. More acutely, the younger players all have largely failed to live up to their abundant promise. Meaning this team somehow both basks in old glories and underperforms disappointingly. On an individual level anyway.

Because on the whole, Portugal keeps delivering. Somehow, it all still functions.

Because it has Ronaldo, who practically dragged the Portuguese to victory at Euro 2016, in spite of its many and obvious deficiencies. On many days, it’s felt like those red jerseys contained Ronaldo and 10 warm bodies drummed up outside the stadium just before the game.

Portugal has Ronaldo and for as long as that’s true, it will be competitive. Going into Monday’s final World Cup group stage game against a feisty Iran, Ronaldo had scored a hat trick to secure an unexpected 3-3 tie with Spain and got the only goal against Morocco in a 1-0 victory.

If Ronaldo were a country, he would have had just as many goals and points as Portugal did.

But in a 1-1 tie with Iran, Portugal advanced to the knockout rounds not because of Ronaldo, but perhaps even in spite of him, after he missed a penalty and should probably have been sent off.

At long last, the scoring load was carried by someone else, the brilliant but infuriatingly inconsistent Quaresma. His transcendent first-half strike ensured that Portugal survived. Although Iran’s injury-time penalty kick by Karim Ansarifard meant that Portugal gave away first place in Group B. As such, it was cast into a round-of-16 date with Uruguay in the tougher half of the bracket. The punishment for Portugal’s poor performance, then, will be severe.

Iran made an unapologetically bold start against the favorites, hoping to snatch an early goal. It didn’t get one and quickly began sitting deep, as it has any time it’s accomplished anything at all. But while defending is Team Melli’s signature characteristic, it also looked fragile in the back.

Goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand fumbled a simple ball early on. And then a miscommunication with his defense resulted in a fat chance for the Portuguese. In the ninth minute, William Carvalho swung a ball into the box, but Beiranvand got his signals mixed up with Saeid Ezatolahi. They wound up getting in one another’s way as the ball bounced out for Joao Mario. But he half-volleyed the open shot over from the edge of the box. There was a lot of shoving among the Iranians after that.