Cristiano Ronaldo is like the ageing beauty who calls in the plastic surgeons in a futile attempt to preserve their appearance.
The adjustments make them look even older than the passing years, and, like the Bride of Wildenstein, they are the only ones who can’t see it.
Ronaldo is 41. As freakishly well preserved as this Dionysian vision is, performance is underwritten by nature. Athletic decline sets in at the age of 35, give or take a month or two. Ronaldo is almost seven years into the process.
No male player has scored more international goals (146), nor made more international appearances (234). The lad has scored 10 hat-tricks for Portugal. His eminence is not in doubt, only his capacity to keep up with his teammates.
It has taken his former coach at Al-Nassr, Jorge Jesus, to give him the bad news, that he is not 21 anymore. And he took it like a 12-year-old. His exit from the Portugal camp, complete with teased promise to reveal all on social media, was peak diva behaviour.
Ronaldo is done as an elite footballer. The World Cup confirmed that. The pursuit of 1,000 career goals, a target from which he is 21 away, continues in the Saudi Pro League, which kind of says it all.
Vanity is bad enough. Vanity and power combined is a lethal blow to reason and balance. The only voice that matters is his. He is always right, which by definition makes everyone else wrong. The result is the conduct of a child.
Ronaldo was an unused sub against Norway (Photo: AFP)The decision of Jesus to leave him an unused sub against Norway was more than he could take. While his teammates offered their thanks to the travelling Portugal fans, Ronaldo headed straight down the tunnel.
For Jesus this was a straightforward decision. He started Ronaldo against Wales, decided in favour of Goncalo Ramos, who replaced him against the Welsh, for the Norway fixture and was rewarded with the winner.
Jesus explained to Ronaldo before the match that he was not in the starting XI but could feature. “I decided not to bring him on. It’s nothing to make a fuss about,” Jesus said.
When Jesus made it clear that Ramos would again be preferred to Ronaldo for the Denmark game, he whistled the private jet to get him outta there.
“After the press conference of the national team and following a conversation with the president of the Portuguese Football Federation, I have decided to leave the national team training camp. In time, I will tell all the Portuguese the truth about the reasons that motivated me to leave,” Ronaldo said.
Boo hoo. The problem is, in CR7 World, Ronaldo is Portugal. He personalised the legitimate decision of the coach not to pick him and weaponised it, making it a matter of honour. If this is to be his final contribution as an international footballer what an ugly, if predictable way to say goodbye.
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It is not enough to have scaled heights few in the game have reached. Ronaldo sits in the pantheon alongside the greats, men like Ferenc Puskas, Pele, Alberto Di Stefano, Sir Bobby Charlton, Diego Maradona, Lionel Messi et al.
Charlton was infamously substituted by Sir Alf Ramsey in the 1970 World Cup quarter-final with England leading 2-0 against West Germany. England went on to lose 3-2, the first German reply going in as he walked from the field brushing the combover across his balding head.
It turned out to be Charlton’s 106th and final match for his country. Though he said he felt full of running, he went without complaint. He understood his role was to play, the manager’s to choose when.
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