Portugal's Great Albatross
Cristiano Ronaldo toiled once again as Portugal were held to a draw by DR Congo, his shortcomings underlined by the excellent starts made by four other great goalscorers
For Cristiano Ronaldo, the stats really don’t make comforting reading. He had 25 touches against DR Congo, which for a modern centre-forward isn’t unusually low. He had three shots, all from around the penalty spot. None were on target. He won two aerial duels. He did not set up a chance for anybody else. He didn’t attempt a dribble. In truth, he didn’t do much at all. For a player who operates centrally, who draws the attention as a black hole draws light, he was weirdly peripheral.
A look at his heat map is telling. There is a slight splodge out on the left wing but, fundamentally, his zone of movement was restricted to a circle on the edge of the box. He does not move. Perhaps he cannot move. Where Lionel Messi, admittedly two years his junior, still flits sprite-like around the pitch, disappearing for long periods only to reemerge with devastating effect, Ronaldo just sits, absorbing energy.
One of the more extraordinary nights at the last World Cup in Qatar was the game between Portugal and Switzerland. Fernando Santos, knowing he was leaving the job, finally found the courage to leave out Ronaldo and was rewarded with by far Portugal’s best performance of the tournament. Portugal won 6-1 and Ronaldo’s replacement, Gonçalo Ramos, scored three. And yet by midway through the second half, a substantial proportion of the crowd at Lusail were chanting Ronaldo’s name. The biggest cheer of the night came after he’d come on, put the ball in the net despite being miles offside, and delivered his trademark celebration even as the goal was being ruled out. His celebrity somehow outweighed the team performance and the biggest win of the tournament.
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The Power and the Glory, my history of the World Cup, is now out in paperback. Buy it here or here.
Jon Hotten’s brilliant book, Vinciness, is available now in paperback. Order it here. Originally produced as a limited edition hardback, it uses James Vince’s career as a meditation on sport, fragility and frailty. Heartily recommended.
Issue Sixty-One of The Blizzard is available here, featuring Brazil, Argentina, Belgium’s first international coach, a photo-essay from Uzbekistan, memories of Scotland in 1998, a look at Curaçao and Cape Verde and an investigation into what went wrong for Serbia-Montenegro in 2006.
On It Was What It Was, the football history podcast, we start a series on England and the 1966 World Cup. Listen here.
World Cup Wednesdays continue on the It Was What It Was Patreon, with 2010, while last Friday we talked to Sam Kunti about Brazil post-2002. Members can binge all four 1966 episodes now. Join up here.
On Libero, we preview the World Cup. Listen here.
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Ronaldo was 37 at the time and already clearly a burden on Portugal. It wasn’t just that he didn’t move, it’s that he exercised an unhealthy psychological hold. Everything was about him. That remained true at the Euros, when Ronaldo burst into tears after missing a penalty against Slovenia. And somehow, aged 41, Ronaldo is still there in the Portugal side, getting in the way, gurning at every missed shot, making everything about him.
