Cristiano Ronaldo retains grip on the spotlight as age remains merely a number

Cristiano Ronaldo is at it again. Last Monday, he fired in another two goals for Portugal in their opening pool game at the Euro 2020 finals. He refuses to leave the spotlight. On the eve of his 20th season as a professional footballer, he continues to terrorise defences. Off the pitch, the cameras still can't take their eyes off him.

In the pre-match press conference, Ronaldo caused a stir when he removed two Coca-Cola bottles from the table in front of him (later explaining he doesn’t like it when his 11-year-old son occasionally drinks Coke). He replaced them with a bottle of water, grunting “agua!” According to the Associated Press, the gesture coincided with a $4 billion dip in the soft drink company’s market valuation, although the company’s share price fluctuates all the time.

At 36, Ronaldo is making a mockery of the ageing process. His standards aren't dipping. Last season, as his club Juventus surrendered their Serie A title, he scored 29 goals in 33 games. The season before it was 31 in 33 games. With 106 goals scored for Portugal, Ronaldo is only three shy of the world record holder, a player whose name is a table quiz answer, the retired Iranian footballer Ali Daei.

It's Ronaldo's insatiable appetite for breaking records - which include being the top scorer in Champions League history - that makes him great. He has an obsessive streak that is arguably unmatched in the world of sport. The lengths he goes to maintain his fitness are legendary, including plunging into ice baths at 5 o'clock in the morning.

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Ronaldo has avoided major injuries during his career due to luck, good genes and his mindset. He has taken advantage of advances in diet and strength and conditioning. When he was at Real Madrid, his former coach Zinedine Zidane persuaded him about the benefits of rest and the need to peak at the right time of the season.

Smarter with age

It was a mental shift which resulted in Ronaldo memorably scoring five goals against Bayern Munich in the 2017 Champions League quarter-final. In the semi-final, he killed the tie with a hat-trick against city rivals Atletico Madrid, a team designed by Diego Simeone not to concede goals. In that year's final, he scored two goals against Juve in a 4-1 victory.

Ronaldo has grown smarter with age. He hunts closer to goal, 20 metres further up the pitch. He no longer goes galloping down the wings. He’s become a goal-poacher. He craves goals so much that he even despairs sometimes when a teammate scores instead of himself. It’s this need deep within himself for personal glory - an insecurity, a desperation to be adored - which drives him on. He doesn’t compete for pleasure; he competes out of necessity.

And Ronaldo won't stop. When he casts around at his peers in other sports, he sees that other athletes, too, are defying their ageing bodies. Last month Phil Mickelson won a Major championship at the age of 50. In January, Tom Brady (43) added another Super Bowl ring to his collection. In tennis, Novak Djokovic (34), Rafael Nadal (35) and Roger Federer (39) still dominate grand slam tournaments.

At club level, Ronaldo is at a crossroads. He hasn't been able to provide Juventus with the jump they were looking for when he moved to Italy in 2018. Both Juve and himself are no longer a force in the knockout stages of the Champions League. Ronaldo might move clubs this summer.

Ronaldo's Real Madrid teammates used to call him 'The Anxious One' because of his on-running battle to out-gun Lionel Messi in goalscoring feats

Although the Spanish media have been feeding on rumours since the spring that he will return to Real Madrid, it is highly unlikely that will happen. The Spanish giants are in a hole financially. Their divorce in 2018 was bad for both parties. It hastened Zidane's first departure as coach, as he was furious that the club president Florentino Pérez favoured keeping Gareth Bale over Ronaldo.

The gamble by Pérez - who always had a frosty relationship with Ronaldo - to sell him and put his faith in an injury-prone Bale, who also lacked the competitiveness of Ronaldo, backfired. Real Madrid have only won one major trophy in the last three seasons, a La Liga title in 2020. They've lost in branding terms, too. Attendances dropped after he left.

Ronaldo is box office. At his unveiling in July 2009, 80,000 fans piled into the stadium; 10,000 were left outside the gates. More fans watched him live do a few keepy-uppys that sultry summer evening than were there to see him play in Rome's Olympic Stadium for his last game as a Manchester United player against Barça in the Champions League final.

Eden Hazard - who wears Ronaldo's iconic No 7 jersey and who was bought for €160 million, according to Diario Sport, in the summer of 2019 - has only scored five goals in two seasons at Real Madrid. Luka Jovic, another flop, cost €60 million; he has scored two goals over the same period. Ronaldo averaged 50 goals a season over nine seasons.

Vanity

Strangely, Ronaldo isn’t missed on an emotional level by Real Madrid fans. It was notable that when Real Madrid unveiled new players Vinicius Jr and Álvaro Odriozola the summer Ronaldo departed for Juve, there was no chanting of Ronaldo’s name by fans at the Bernabéu. Whereas in 2013, at Bale’s unveiling, Real Madrid’s fans chanted for the Arsenal-bound Mesut Özil, a player who is only a footnote in the club’s history.

Real Madrid fans despised Ronaldo's vanity. They were disgusted at his shirtless, He-Man pose by the corner flag in Lisbon during celebrations for the 2014 Champions League final. Madridistas cherish a player who sweats the jersey like the club's icon, Alfredo di Stéfano, or a discrete star like Toni Kroos whose name was serenaded at their stadium pre-Covid 19.

Ronaldo - who used to wear shinpads decorated with pictures of himself and probably shouts his own name during sex, as one reviewer of the 2015 Ronaldo documentary put it - knows no bounds to his self-love. “On an individual level, I give myself a 10 and collectively [the squad] a 9,” Ronaldo said in an interview with Marca after Real Madrid won the 2012 La Liga title.

Ronaldo's Real Madrid teammates used to call him "The Anxious One" because of his on-running battle to out-gun Lionel Messi in goalscoring feats. Ronaldo has always been able to match Messi in goalscoring, but not in affection. There's something about Messi's childlike, other-worldly gifts - as opposed to the manufactured quality of Ronaldo, who seems as if he was custom-built in a German factory - which endears him more to neutral football fans.

This was hinted at by Spain's World Cup-winning coach Vicente del Bosque during the week, as the age-old debate about who is the better player surfaced during a television interview on Canal Sur. Not to be outdone by Ronaldo's performance at the Euros, Messi scored an immaculate free-kick against Chile on the same night in the Copa América.

“Messi [is the better player] and I’m going to tell you why,” said Del Bosque. “I’m not [saying it]to discredit Cristiano. [Messi] is like a kid from the street, from the neighbourhood - one of those who we played with and he made fun of you on the pitch. That’s why he’s the best player in the world.”

Personal rivalry

It's a blessing that we are still living through their great personal rivalry. Previously, the greatest footballers stood apart from their generation: Di Stéfano in the 1950s, Pelé in the 1960s and Diego Maradona in the 1980s.

It could be argued that Ronaldo is a better captain. Messi is a surly figure. His reticence intimidates lesser teammates (and most coaches). Barça fans criticise him as club captain because he never addresses the media after important defeats (and there have been many embarrassing ones in Europe over the last few years).

It could also be claimed that Messi has become a millstone at Barça. His salary, which is just being re-negotiated at Barça for another two seasons, is about twice what Ronaldo earns. Psychologically, too, Messi’s presence has consumed the club. “Turning a man into a god never ends well,” as Iñako Diaz-Guerra, a columnist with El Mundo wrote last January when Messi’s exorbitant salary was leaked to the Spanish press.

Ronaldo showed his mettle when, injured and hobbling, he cheered his Portugal teammates on from the sidelines during their extra-time final win against France at Euro 2016. Again, this evening, he'll be centre stage against Germany. He'll be desperate to spearhead Portugal's defence of their European crown, and who knows, maybe a charge towards another Ballon d'Or title to draw equal with Messi's haul of six.

Fact File

Name: Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro (named after his father's favourite actor, US President Ronald Reagan)

Age: 36

Born: Funchal, Madeira, Portugal

Height: 6ft 2in

Nickname: CR7 (the name of several of his branded clothing lines and merchandise as well as his museum on the island of Madeira)

Partner: Georgina Rodríguez

Children (4): with Georgina Rodríguez: Alana, 2017; with mother’s maiden name publicly unavailable: Eva and Mateo (twins), 2017; with mother’s name publicly unavailable: Cristiano Jr., 2010

Agent: Jorge Mendes (who Ronaldo describes as "the [WORLD'S]best, the Cristiano Ronaldo of agents"; Ronaldo was best man at his wedding in 2015, buying him a Greek island as a wedding gift)

Clubs (4): Sporting Lisbon (2002-2003); Manchester United (2003-2009); Real Madrid (2009-2018); Juventus (2018-)

Champions League Titles (5): 2008, 2014, 2016-2018

League Titles (7): Manchester United (2007-2009); Real Madrid (2012, 2017); Juventus (2019-2020)

International Tournament Wins with Portugal: UEFA European Championships (2016); UEFA Nations League (2019)

Ballon d’Or Awards (5): 2008, 2013-2014, 2016-2017

Social Media Followers: 517M (according to Visual Capitalist, more than anyone else in the world)

2020 earnings: $120 million (according to Forbes, placing him #3 in rankings of world’s top-paid athletes)

In 2010, Ronaldo paid $375,000 to Kathryn Mayorga to settle a sexual assault claim

In 2015, the European Southern Observatory named a recently discovered galaxy COSMOS Redshift 7, or CR7, in honour of Ronaldo