Cristiano Ronaldo and the humanising of a GOAT | Football News – Times of India

Are we giving the idea too much credit? Maybe. Because as the Apollo Creeds of world football stepped away from the ring last night, weeping, you couldn’t help but wonder how Regragui’s opposite number, Fernando Santos’s hand must have been forced last night.
Santos’s Portugal played some of their best football against Morocco, more than equal for great periods of the game. Their falling behind was off an error between his goalkeeper, Diogo Costa and defender, Ruben Diaz, a natural outcome of the constant, furious thrust and parry of the game and highly probable with the intensity and efficiency of Morocco’s breaks and counters.

But it was not as if Joao Felix, Bruno Fernandez were blown out of the water after that, unable to operate, their legs heavy, minds blank, but then such is the theatre of the superstar ethos of football that Santos was left with no choice but to introduce Cristiano Ronaldo to rescue the game.
Even Regrarui would notice. “When we scored a goal, and when Ronaldo made his entry, they became obnoxious and played too much up front,” he observed.
Such is his reputation that the spectre of Ronaldo would always hold sway. “Honestly, you have overcome their coach (with the goal),” Regrarui would explain, and concede, “But the tactic that scared me was Ronaldo’s entry.”
Yet, it was colossal, the error, not the entry. Ronaldo was worse than just being peripheral in the proceedings, confused over his position, unaware of his role in the plan, a once-proud, ultra-effective superstar simply withering away before the watching world’s eyes.

In his first touch, he would be robbed off the ball in a once-unthinkable now-routine moment, then he would move up, shuffle and shift trying to guess and fit into the patterns his team had already been forming, all well-known symptoms of a player unsure of his role and dare one say, ability even. His entry would force a re-jig of the system to accommodate him.
His touches and intent would show ambition, pride and flashes of his fearsome old but somewhere the world was moving faster than he could. Whichever way you saw it, at the stadium, or on HD TV, with the luxury of a million angles and replays seducing your mind, it was not a pretty sight. It didn’t end pretty either.
Santos would offer his explanation. “Cristiano is a great player. He came on when I thought he needed to. So, I don’t regret it,” he would say, and then sigh, “But yes, the dressing room is shattered.”
This was not the end a player of his legend, numbers and ambition deserved, but then that was the curse of becoming bigger than the collective that Portugal, despite the best efforts of the rest, was falling to.

Regrarui’s words would offer some consolation, but would it be enough? “They caused us more problems than Spain. It was clear they had studied us, they put a lot of players between the lines, a lot of balls behind our backs and crosses from the sides.
“We held on, they didn’t let us breathe. We were a lot more tired in comparison to the Spain match,” he would say. The relief would be extreme, and so palpable.
At the final whistle, instead of finding their own history-making huddle, two Moroccan players would immediately rush to the great Ronaldo and offer their commiserations. It would be the most touching, instinctive act of recognizing a legend in their midst.
Yet, as you watched him walk away, inconsolable, you’d feel that it was only right that it ended now, even if like this, for prolonging the agony of watching a legend in decline, yet in denial, would be so uncharitable to the terrific, self-made legend of Cristiano Ronaldo. When Rocky becomes Apollo Creed, you stop cheering for the underdog because someone else takes his place. Here it was Morocco.