I have perfect faith that should Cristiano Ronaldo ever be reincarnated as a European general he would enjoy a gallant career before destroying his reputation in a catastrophic and pig-headed attempt to invade Russia.
Who could have any doubt about that? Then again, perhaps I have this astral transfer the wrong way around – that it’s Napoleon who has been reincarnated as Ronaldo, and now, after a brilliant career of conquest, is raging against his exile. Where Napoleon grimly faltered in the cold and formidable vastness of Russia, Ronaldo’s unbeatable foe is age.
The Napoleonic stallion is 41 now, and his ego is objecting bitterly to the athletic consequences. If I were compiling a metaphysical periodic table, one of the elements included would be Ronaldo’s will. Alas, it is so powerful as to be beyond its owner’s regulation and, having fuelled one of the great sporting careers, can only now seed public tantrums and the deluded confidence that Old Man Time can be defeated.
It’s been said, and I tend to agree, that Cristiano Ronaldo may be the best non-genius to have played the world game. That is, Ronaldo’s dominance was achieved through imperious drive and obsessive athletic conditioning and not the more recondite creativity and vision that distinguished the careers of Lionel Messi and Diego Maradona.
That will to excellence and the body to complement it has yielded five Ballons d’Or and the men’s world record for both international goals and appearances. With Portugal he won the European Championship; with Manchester United and Real Madrid he won every club trophy going.
The yield on that ego, then, is historically bountiful and has made him a billionaire. But there have been sacrifices too. Of humour, warmth, proportionality. Easy to admire but very hard to like, Ronaldo has pursued dominance ruthlessly and if that quest has taken him to the summit, it has also rendered him vain, selfish and perfectly charmless. Now, it also makes for a terrible teammate and the ugliest sense of entitlement.
Portugal had a talented squad for this year’s World Cup but were saddled with a manager of pitiful courage. While it seemed obvious Ronaldo was well past it, and that his demanding aura deformed the team’s coherence, Roberto Martínez played not the role of boss but bullied sycophant.
Portugal were better without Ronaldo, whose pace and finishing were now markedly deteriorated and whose presence retarded their transition into a better-balanced, post-divinity era. Alas, Martínez shrank before the challenge and played Ronaldo in every game and for every minute. Naturally, this failed to win the respect of Ronaldo – but regarding his ego, you’re damned if you oblige it and damned if you don’t.
Almost 2000 aggrieved words about being asked to warm up and then not being played in a game that Portugal won – well, our demigod doth protest too much.
For as long as Ronaldo played, his teammates were like astronauts trying to negotiate a black hole. Such was Ronaldo’s respect for Martínez that the world saw him contemptuously wave away some of his half-time advice as though it was a bad fart.
Two players have defined world football for most of this century: Ronaldo and Argentina’s Lionel Messi. While Ronaldo’s tyranny brought team confusion and individual ignominy during this year’s World Cup, the Argentinian was enjoying a golden twilight and the Silver Boot.
Twinned for many years upon the summit, the two veterans were now diverging in the very latest stage of their careers. Messi’s genius was still purring; Ronaldo was huffing and puffing but unwilling to concede anything. It seemed implausible that Argentina could have made the World Cup final without their brightest star; it seemed plausible that Portugal would have progressed much further without theirs.
“He’ll be raging,” Ronaldo’s old United teammate Wayne Rooney said on television.
Now the decorated player’s ego’s reluctance to surrender has found a fresh nadir.
After Portugal’s early departure from the World Cup, the jelly-spined Roberto Martínez was replaced by the solemn Jorge Jesus. Understanding that his role was not merely managing a combustible ego in the changing rooms but also managing a national icon, Jesus publicly flattered Ronaldo while seeking to reduce his centrality to the side.
On September 27, Jesus named Ronaldo as a substitute against Norway. Early in the second half, he asked his striker to warm up. But Ronaldo went unused, Portugal won 2-1, and the ageing star left the team’s camp in disgust.
What’s remarkable is that Ronaldo then released a 1700-word statement accusing Jesus of duplicity on the day of Messi’s final match for Argentina. The statement apologised to fans and teammates for his petulant departure, for which he has now been sanctioned, but the essence of the lengthy screed was establishing his persecution. “I warmed up from halftime, watched the minutes tick by, and was never called upon,” his statement read. “The coach had broken his word to me … Forty-eight hours later we had a conversation … It was a deep moment, very frank, without any kind of filter. We agreed that there was only one way to close this ‘case’: that the coach repeat what he had just told me in private … in the press room. What was agreed was simple: the coach would begin the press conference with this subject, seeking to close the matter by telling the truth.”
Remarkably, Ronaldo’s public statement included the talking points he had given his own manager to recite at his press conference regarding Ronaldo’s tantrum. No. 4 of the talking points? “[Ronaldo] never questioned my choices. He was exemplary, loyal and professional.”
Here’s the eighth point he’d written for his manager: “Someone who has played more than 230 matches for the national team does not receive lessons from me on love for Portugal. It was a moment of frustration that erases nothing. He is the player who gives the most autographs, takes the most selfies, and shows the most affection to the fans. Let us not invent problems where they do not exist. When we are not happy we react.”
Jesus’s refusal to use these talking points seems to have sent St Cristiano into conniptions of rage. When his attempt to bully his manager into a generous defence of his character failed, he then sought the man’s public humiliation. This attempt has, quite predictably, implicated himself. Ronaldo has no idea how bad a look it is to have not only prepared talking points for his own manager but also to then betray his own obliviousness by sharing them himself.
A manager reserves the right to play and not play whomever they like. They also reserve the right to have someone warm up before changing their mind about their deployment. These are the natural and respectable powers of a coach, however much Ronaldo might see moral wretchedness. In fact, what would be wretched is to be so weak as to allow one 41-year-old to hold the national team hostage – as Roberto Martínez did earlier this year.
Almost 2000 aggrieved words about being asked to warm up and then not being played in a game that Portugal won – well, our demigod doth protest too much.
Reverence must be addictive, though. There came a time when Ronaldo’s fame and ability slipped the usual boundaries of authority, as so his stature swelled to the cosmic dimensions that his ego had always assumed as preordained.
As of writing, we don’t know yet if Ronaldo has played his last match for his country – the one he demanded his manager tell the world he loves above much else. We don’t know if the Napoleonic will of Ronaldo, even if his athletic skills have now long broken from it, will triumph over Jorge Jesus. Or if Portuguese football, and its public, might finally concede that their legend is now a liability.
We’ve all benefited from Ronaldo’s fevered ego – all sports fans at least – and I think we benefit still. Because that iron will made magic, just as it now makes operatic madness. Ronaldo’s ego is no more adjustable than a cyclone, and unless one is personally employed to tame or mitigate it, then we might just as well enjoy its wildness.
Glory and disgrace. They’re inseparable here. We must all die, but I think Ronaldo will suffer more deaths than most. Right now we’re watching him vainly revolt against his first.