All good things must come to an end, and that surely now ought to include the footballing career of Cristiano Ronaldo, who disgraced himself again on Monday after being sent off for appearing to stamp on and elbow an opponent in his team Al-Nassr’s Saudi Super Cup defeat by Al-Hilal. He then seemed to come close to hitting the referee. This debacle comes hard on the heels of him making an obscene gesture to fans after a game in February. Yes, he’s still scoring goals, at a low level of football, but as a global sporting icon, he’s in danger of becoming an embarrassment.
If Ronaldo were 19 his recent behaviour would certainly invite censure but it would be larded with plenty of mitigating sympathy about his youth, disadvantaged background and the extraordinary pressure placed on young players today. But Ronaldo is 39, a good 20 years older than the young players he ought to be setting an example for. At the moment, the only example he is setting is one of Olympian arrogance and a rather vicious petulance.
Why is Ronaldo still playing? Fame? Surely not. He’s one of the most recognisable faces on the planet – members of lost tribes in the jungles of South America are probably aware of him. Fortune? Maybe, but he must be approaching tech titan levels of wealth by now. Or is he hanging on in pursuit of the holy grail of strikers – 1,000 career goals. Ronaldo has 885 and could probably get close in another three seasons.
I suspect all of these things play their part but the overarching reason is simply his character, and thus his destiny. Ronaldo just loves being Ronaldo, the greatest player (once possibly true, but now in his mind) on the planet. He appears to have an almost pathological craving for an audience and a need to be at the centre of the story – preferably through his football, but failing that through controversy.
He’s an incorrigible show-off. He reminds me of children from my childhood who would ride no hands on chopper bikes to impress their peers, or boy racers doing hand break turns in a car park. Or Tony Manero from Saturday Night Fever who comes alive on the dance floor and lives for thrilling the crowd with the one thing he can do brilliantly. Take away the stage from these one-trick show ponies and they would have little left. They would shrivel.
This is all sounding a bit harsh, I know. A few outbursts of late career petulance doesn’t erase two decades of achievement. And Ronaldo has had a truly amazing career. The way he has maintained the fitness levels of a triathlete and with it Greek god musculature, and scored hatfuls of goals at every club he’s ever played at, has been phenomenal.
He’s never been a favourite player of mine (too wasteful – he had a one in 72 success rate for free kicks at Juventus) but his dedication to his sport does inspire admiration. And if the accusation that he plays for himself rather than the team is hard to refute, at least he is his own man, he has stayed true to his (flawed) self. And there is goodness in there: witness his refusal to have a single tattoo on his body, to enable him to donate blood.
But the last few years have not been good. His return to Manchester Utd yielded goals for Ronaldo but no improvement overall for the team. Off the pitch, there was more bad news than good, and Ronaldo somehow managed the near impossible, tarnishing his reputation at the club where he made his name and where he was considered almost a deity. Going public (Piers Morgan) with what sounded like trivial complaints was graceless – especially when contrasted with the quiet dignity of his manager Erik Ten Hag in response.
The Saudi adventure has been an underwhelming affair too. Ronaldo may have trousered almost unimaginable amounts of money, but he hasn’t done much to elevate what has been described as a retirement league. His club Al-Nassr has average crowds of 20,000 and while a few other ageing stars have been attracted and the games are screened worldwide, it’s still nowhere near being a contender for serious footballing attention.
Ronaldo is aiming to play in Euro 2024 for Portugal and has even said he hopes to feature in the 2026 World Cup (that would be his sixth). But there are plenty who believe Portugal play better without him. It is entirely possible he won’t be selected for the tournament in Germany this summer and even if he is, that he won’t feature much or make much impact – as happened in Qatar two years ago.
That would be degrading, especially if the ‘Messi’ taunts he’s faced in Saudi recently follow him to Germany. Much better to call it a day while the warm glow of his best days still gives off some heat. At present he’s heading for irrelevance, and worse, in danger of becoming a bit of a bore.