Outcast Ronaldo bows out in tears
IT WOULD be easy to represent Cristiano Ronaldo’s tearful disappearance down the stadium tunnel, and into international football history, as more of the same self-absorption that has stained the sunset of a glorious career, though it is actually a little more complicated than that.
His 10 touches of the football last night seem to tell a story about a light going out and his manager Fernando Santos certainly had no compunction about excluding him from the starting line-up.
‘No. No regrets,’ Santos observed. ‘He came on when it was necessary. So I have no regret.’
Just 24 hours earlier, Lionel Messi had electrified the Lusail Stadium with a pass played into the realms of his peripheral vision which bought Argentina a goal, before slaloming through a Dutch midfield to conjure the memories of Diego Maradona.
Ronaldo has not held a candle here to the bewitching No10 they call La Pulga — ‘the flea’.
But this quarter-final was still crying out for his dynamism and difference. Though his contributions were brief and tantalising, they were enough to tell us that Santos and his blunt assessments were wrong.
Portugal’s wretched, pointless first half revealed that he was going to need to feature very seriously on this field if his nation were going to have a prayer.
We were told after Portugal’s 6-1 win over the Swiss that there is a new generation now: the forward Goncalo Ramos and the whippetthin winger Joao Felix. But those first 45 minutes revealed a different story.
Ramos was invisible. Felix could not make the slightest imprint on the red sea of jerseys before him. A shot with his outstep flew into a Morocco defender and out of play. A snatched half volley sailed over the bar. It was the man wearing a red No7, Morocco’s Hakim Ziyech, who shone a light.
When Ronaldo arrived, you gave silent thanks for the energy and electricity.
The stadium clock had just ticked up to its 48th minute when he pulled off his training top in such a vigorous way that you really could not doubt the immense competitive intent.
Within a minute of coming on, he was powering away towards the byeline, standing up a cross which no one in white was present to take. The strategy was to bypass the red army, throw crosses up at him and hope that his leverage could elevate him to convert one. His jersey was stained with mud within a few minutes on the field.
He drank in every moment of his 39 minutes. He had taken the captain’s arm band from Pepe, on what was his 196th appearance, and a break in play had him convene a shop stewards meeting with Ruben
Dias and Ramos. The instructions, hollered above the searing whistles of the Moroccan fans who howled at the very sight of him, were basic.
Portugal would play a quartet at the top of the pitch, with him at the core of it.
But nothing could disguise the fact that Portugal lacked the means to supply him with opportunity. This is a side equipped with technically gifted players, such as Bruno Fernandes and Bernardo Silva, yet they went route one.
Ronaldo strained every neck muscle to reach a ball hoisted up for him but it sailed above him and out of play. When a speculative pass was hit into the inside-right channel, he left Jawad El Yamiq for dead as he fastened on to the ball and whipped off a low shot which was saved.
He still has that capacity to make defenders ignore his team-mates as he drags them in into his orbit. His leap for a cross at the end left Pepe unhindered but the defender put his header wide. A monumental opportunity squandered.
The look in Portuguese eyes in that moment told you that they knew it was gone. There would be no international swansong for the player who has been the beating heart of this team for nearly 20 years.
The world crowded in at the final whistle — Morocco players wanting to console him, a lunatic fan wanting to embrace him.
But he marched straight off the field, head down, the distress eventually flooding out. It wasn’t supposed to end this way.