Cristiano bursts into tears on the pitch after Portugal lost to Morocco. /
His tears are not moving because they are not shed by the disappointment that the elimination of Portugal means for his country. are only for him
Cristiano Ronaldo leaves the field and cries like a child in the very long tunnel that leads to the Portugal locker room. A front camera focuses on him, an accredited gentleman, supposedly from the Portuguese delegation, grabs him at times by the elbow along the way, perhaps to serve as a ground connection to discharge static electricity from his body, or acting as an anchor that holds him to the ground, Ronaldo, who for years has levitated several centimeters above the grass.
He is the only footballer who is there, because the others are still on the green, some grieving, others celebrating. However, Cristiano’s tears do not move. That same scene, with any other player as the protagonist, would make the hair stand on end for a minimally sensitive person who is watching it on television, but not with Cristiano. That is sad, perhaps, but for other reasons.
Because, who else, who less, all soccer fans intuit that the tears of the Portuguese captain are not shed by the collective disaster and disappointment that the elimination of Portugal supposes for his country, but by the elimination of Cristiano; because Cristiano has not been the best, because Cristiano will never be World Champion and he has not equaled Eusebio as a Portuguese goalscorer in the World Cups. Perhaps because he feels misunderstood when the football universe believes that he is no longer the Cristiano from a few years ago, while he himself thinks that it is not like that, and what will others know. It’s just a rough patch, at best.
Cristiano cries for Ronaldo, and not for Portugal, which is what the others do. This is what usually happens when a footballer like him, who has been everything, has an ego that is more developed than his abs, and the development of Cristiano’s abs is not debatable. We imagine Cristiano tossing and turning in his king-size bed with satin sheets –Georgina uncomfortable with so much movement–, imploring heaven and asking himself: “Why me, why?” Why him, whom ordinary mortals have always envied because he was more handsome and richer than the others? He said so himself.
The camera sycophants of Florentino Pérez are praising these days the vision that the president of Madrid had when he decided that Cristiano should not continue at the club and sold it for 122 million euros, and for once it must be recognized that he was not wrong, although Actually, there were many people who thought that, after turning the corner of thirty, a player who always based his power on exceptional physical condition, would start to give problems. And not because of that obvious decline, but because he has always refused to accept it, and to adopt a different role, away from the explosiveness of his younger years. Cristiano is a great footballer, who has also made himself, pushed in large part by that elephantine self-esteem, which has helped him overcome many difficulties, but has also distanced him from the reality of his own self.
They say that in the Portugal dressing room they no longer respect him as before. It’s hard. Of his old guard there is hardly anyone left: Pepe and little else. It happens to him like in Manchester United. He returned to his old club and there was no one there who treated him with the respect he believes he deserves, least of all his coach Ten Hag. According to Cristiano, his leaders, “are incompetent, obsolete and dishonest.” Of course, they have thrown him out. One less problem.
He was so revered at Real Madrid, and later, although to a lesser extent, at Juventus, that he thought that paying homage to him and playing as a starter was something that others owed him, so it must be difficult, for a character like him, to assume that reality. “You’re in a damn hurry to kick me out, fuck you!” He told Fernando Santos, the coach, when he switched against Switzerland. He wanted to beat Eusebio’s record for goals in the World Cup, and despite the Portuguese thrashing, he did not score, and ended up frustrated and on the bench in the next two games.
With the elimination, she cried, but her tears do not move. Cristiano has not been able to channel his football decline well, although he will make gold if in the end he goes to Saudi Arabia to collect 400 million for two years.
