Cristiano Ronaldo tight-lipped on 'deliberate' Portugal booking

The Real Madrid forward will miss the last qualifier at home to bottom side Luxembourg on Tuesday through suspension after receiving a yellow card for protesting in the dying minutes against Israel on Friday.

Real Madrid team-mate Pepe is also banned for a match where there seems little to play for because Russia and Portugal are certain to finish in the top two in Group F. Russia, who are three points ahead of Portugal, travel to fourth-placed Azerbaijan on Tuesday.

"I can't talk about that [booking]," Ronaldo told reporters. "Fifa is always very attentive to those situations," he added, referring to the game's ruling body. "The playoff is the most important and I don't want to be out. I will be at those two matches."

Ronaldo said Portugal found it tough to penetrate Israel's wall of defence on Friday. "We have to improve in many aspects," he said. "Israel had two buses behind the ball and when it's like that it's hard to score. We were apathetic in the second half, looked sleepy even, and things did not go well. We lacked a bit of maturity at times, maybe it was because we had a young team with a lot of changes."