Cristiano Ronaldo scored his second goal against Wolfsburg from a corner. As the ball was swung in from the right, he ran to the near post, tittering and swinging his arms manically from side to side as is his running form. Then he leaped into the air, higher than the three defenders behind him, and glanced the ball down to the far post. Perfect.
Cristiano Ronaldo doesn’t need your adulation, but he demands your respect
More than anything else, Cristiano Ronaldo wants to you understand that he’s great.
Gonzalo Arroyo Moreno/Getty Images
Credit: user tisfootball on r/soccer
What was expected after the goal and any of his goals in the last few years is his trademark celebration. The one where he runs to a corner of the pitch, jumps, turns while in the air and lands in the powerful pose of having his legs and arms spread out as he flexes his muscles. It’s his version of the Gladiator “Are you not entertained!?” scene.
He didn’t do it after the second goal. Instead Ronaldo did a knee-slide before being swarmed by his teammates. A pretty standard celebration. But as he jogged back to position, he pumped his fist several times at the fans before swinging both of his arms upwards, urging them to get louder. There was a pained expression on his face; he looked frustrated, angry and defiant all at once.
Cristiano Ronaldo was fed up.
It was the same look for the celebration of his first goal -- Dani Carvajal's deflected cross found Ronaldo alone at the far post, with the goalkeeper out of position. He was never going to miss. Some will dismiss the goal for its simplicity, but often the simplest things are also the hardest to do. When he grabbed the ball out of the net and ran back, he was just as angry and solicited the fans in the same manner.
He would later score a third and send Real Madrid to the next round of the Champions League.
But throughout the match he had this look: teeth clenched, sometimes bare, grimacing, scowling and showing visible frustration at his and his teammates’ mistakes. He was at his boiling point. It’s not really an unusual situation -- he’s been known to throw tantrums when things don’t go his way -- but this time was different. He wasn’t angry because the world had failed to pamper him; instead it was if he had been cornered and was retaliating.
This was Ronaldo in all of his madness, entirely visible and unrestrained. This was the villain that he’s been painted as, all bulging muscles, extrusive veins and chilling death stares. The uncontrollable child, the vain deity, the arrogant and uneducated footballer. The commander. They were all in the open now.
He was pissed off and rightfully so. The self-proclaimed best club in the history of the sport, Real Madrid, were down to Wolfsburg -- WOLFSBURG! -- 0-2 after an inexplicable first-leg performance. It was downright embarrassing. There would be no excuse that could stave off the hounds of the media were they to be eliminated. He would be their main target.
But his anger extended far beyond this solitary match; his stares, arm-swings, screams and general defiance was aimed at the watching world. His frustration was at everything and everyone, and this match would be his demand for the respect that he deserved.
Credit: Gonzalo Arroyo Moreno/Getty Images
First he was demanding that his teammates match his level of play. A notion that he had expressed a few weeks ago -- that if his teammates, not named Gareth Bale or Karim Benzema, matched or were close to him in ability, Madrid would be top of the Spanish league. It was a callous thing to say, which he unsuccessfully tried to rescue by claiming that he was speaking on their physicality rather than their talent. Careless and inexcusable as it was, it became another weapon to bludgeon him with in public.
“Look at that Ronaldo again, as arrogant and self-centered as ever.”
He was also demanding to be seen as the phenomenal player that he is, even at the age of 31. Not to be loved, but to be acknowledged. There's a seasonal practice, a pastime, of constantly looking for signs of his decline. An exercise that tries to relegate him to the past, as a has-been, even as he continues to do the impossible. Last year, it was asked if the knee injury that he played with in the World Cup had ruined him. If that was the signal of the end. It didn't and it wasn't.
This year has seen the suggestion that he's no longer a big-game player. That his goals only come against the weaker teams, and to an extent, there was truth to the belief. Many of his goals earlier this season had come in bunches against the relatively smaller teams, but the goalposts were always moved to discredit him. If he doesn't score against Sevilla, they're a big team; if he scores against Roma, they're a small one.
Then on April 2, with Real Madrid tied 1-1 with Barcelona in El Clásico, and down a man with time almost up, he scored the winner against the biggest team of them all.
The nitpicking continues, and will continue until the end of his career. Then the audience can point to his retirement or move to a weaker league and satisfy themselves with an "I told you so!," because the only thing more enthralling than the rise of a star is his subsequent downfall.
Lastly, he wanted his person-hood, his individuality.
It's looked at as unfortunate that both Ronaldo and Lionel Messi should exist in the same generation. They're trapped in eternal competition and in comparison. Thus one will have to be the greater and the other the lesser. Our binary thinking forcibly associates one with the other.
Yet comparisons, especially in sports, are never done objectively. It’s often a ploy to belittle. It’s not done in an appreciation of talent, but by using the achievements of Messi, one can invalidate Ronaldo. You only need to bring up Champions League medals, Ballon d’Ors and certain records by Messi to say that what Ronaldo has achieved is not as great as it looks.
he wanted his personhood, his individuality
With his role as the lesser, one that is supported by the propaganda of him as the yang to Messi's yin, he's starved of the same compassion as his rival. Ronaldo goes a few games without scoring and it becomes the signal of the end of all things. If Messi does the same for four games, there's no need to worry.
Against Wolfsburg, he set himself apart once again by setting two Champions League records. The hat trick was his third this season in the competition, something that no other player has achieved. He has also scored 16 goals, which makes it the second time that’s done so, a feat that is alone his as well. The three goals also took him to 93 total goals in the competition, ten more than Messi.
He was defiant in the game. He didn’t wait for his teammates to match his ability, because he didn’t need to -- he could and did score all three goals to win the game. It was also an answer, a “fuck you” to his detractors that constantly question and put him under a microscope to search for flaws. To invalidate him. He demanded that they see him in all of his power.
He scored and scowled. He pumped his fists, screamed and stared coldly at the world. He doesn’t need, or ask to be loved. But no one, especially Wolfsburg, is going to deny him his respect.
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