Ronaldo is off target as Portugal let their chance slip
An unfamiliar noise was ringing in Cristiano Ronaldo’s ears. It was not applause, or acclaim, or even booing. Booing he could take, but here the sound reverberating throughout Paris – throughout the known world, perhaps – was laughter, in great and glorious peals. The joke was on Ronaldo, who on a night of incredible profligacy missed a penalty, missed sitters, missed free-kicks and had a goal ruled out for offside. But it was also on Portugal, whose failure to win a game they totally controlled may cost them dearly.
The numbers were stark: 23 shots on goal for Portugal, three for Austria.
Almost half of them fell to Ronaldo, a man whose intense and irrepressible hubris only sharpens the contrast when he fails to deliver. And though it may seem a touch small-minded to revel in the failures of one of the world’s greatest ever players, Ronaldo’s ill-advised trash-talking of Iceland after Portugal’s last game set himself up as the fall guy for this one. For one, Ronaldo had nobody to blame for his chagrin but himself.
Afterwards Portugal coach Fernando Santos refused to answer any questions about Ronaldo. You could scarcely blame him: for all Ronaldo’s high-profile bloopers, this was a collective failure.
Portugal should probably have wrapped up the game by half-time. Austria looked touchy, jumpy, frantic: like impostors who were convinced the real Austria would be arriving at any moment and demand their shirts back. They missed tackles. They missed kicks. They kicked the ball at each other. Even Bayern Munich’s brilliant jackof-all-trades David Alaba, playing almost as a second striker, struggled to find his feet and was substituted early in the second half.
Only goalkeeper Robert Almer kept them in the game, saving brilliantly from Nani in the first half and from Ronaldo – multiple times in the second. As shots rained in on the Austrian goal, Portugal’s failure to reward their own dominance began to look less like ill fate and more like negligence.
Nani was offering no excuses after seeing Portugal waste a host of chances.
“We had to win, we gave it everything. We did everything right but the ball did not go in, once again. What can we say? We cannot excuse ourselves with, ‘The ball won’t go in’ – we had chances. The team played really well.
“Once again we showed that we can play good football. We were superior, we controlled the match against a strong team that also played excellent football, but that’s it.
“I think our moment will come, and it’s right in the next match. There is no other way, it really has to happen.”
By the hour mark Ronaldo had simply seized control of the game and put himself in charge, like a PE teacher throwing down his whistle and deciding to stick himself at centre-forward. To add to two elementary misses in the first half he added a dip from distance, a header saved at the near post, a freekick just over the bar. With just 13 minutes remaining, it appeared his misery was at an end. Martin Hinteregger grabbed him by the waist as they both chased a cross. Penalty.
Yet in a way, Ronaldo’s night of darkness was only just beginning. Almer went the wrong way. So did the ball. As it clattered into the post Ronaldo stalked off in disgust. At himself? At the gods? At the goalpost, with its small mentality and clear anti-Cristiano agenda? Who can say? By the time Ronaldo glanced a header into the net only for the offside flag to go up, even he was beginning to see the funny side. Almost. In his long career, he had probably never seen a game like it.
Santos said Portugal could not wallow in their own misery.
There is a final to play on the 22nd, our first final of these Euros,” he said. “When we talk about the team, we can’t concentrate on how many missed chances we had – fair or unfair – this is football.
“It’s unfair, that’s true, but it’s useless to discuss it now because the next match is a final for us.”
At full-time, something strange happened. A spectator broke through the meagre security ribbon and launched himself at Ronaldo. As stewards swooped, Ronaldo herded them away and allowed the fan to take a selfie with him.
Perhaps, in a way, it was his concession to fate, a form of penance to the sporting gods. Portugal are still in the tournament, albeit behind Iceland on goals scored, and Ronaldo’s day of glory may yet arrive. But this was a night when football – insane, capricious, inscrutable, unbelievable football – was the winner.