First 900 and then 901. Cristiano Ronaldo doesn’t stop and doesn’t seem to want to, supported by phenomenal numbers that, at the age of 39, are even more impressive. If the goals scored in the Saudi championship – 62 in 68 games – enjoy a specific weight in the collective imagination that is not extraordinary due to the average level of the championship, the latest arrivals with the Portugal shirt are the confirmation that the hunger of the champion from Madeira has not yet been satisfied. A hunger for new goals, for new records, useful for feeding the legend and the cult of one of the strongest players of all time, but which at the same time raises doubts about the strange management of the Portuguese national team.
CRISTIANO RONALDO’S LATEST FEAT
The last European Championship in Germany was quite explanatory about the difficulties, for a footballer with a certain identity card and who for two years has chosen a championship that is not among the most training, to fall back into truly competitive contexts and in which the comparison with the new generations becomes more and more merciless from a physical aspect. Despite the image of the superman, super-physical and impeccable in every moment of his life as an athlete, even Cristiano Ronaldo is not immortal and, net of a few special nights in which he still manages to find the spark of the old days, his presence on the pitch is starting to be a limit for the growth of Portugal. A group in which, after the retirement of Pepe, none of the current senators – from Ruben Dias to Bruno Fernandes, passing through Bernardo Silva – has managed to express even half of the charismatic leadership of CR7. And in which pure talents like Gonçalo Inacio, Joao Neves, Renato Veiga, Tiago Santos cannot yet be ready to become points of reference. Not to mention the unfinished ones, to date, like Rafa Leao.
BALLON D’OR, THE FIRST TIME WITHOUT CR7 AND MESSI SINCE 2003? DO YOU REMEMBER THAT RANKING?
Portugal’s paradox is that it is a team with a quantity of talent that is difficult to quantify – if we add Vitinha, Pedro Neto and the latest arrival, 2007’s Geovany Quenda, to the list of players ready to make a definitive statement – but with a sizeable and practically immovable bottleneck that is slowing down its growth. Coaches come and go, but Ronaldo’s untouchability is an impossible dogma to undermine. Despite the fact that the pitch has spoken all too clearly in recent months. However decisive, two goals against Croatia and Scotland in anything but memorable Nations League matches cannot be enough to change the overall judgment. Numbers are numbers and records are destined to go down in history, but Cristiano’s is starting to be more of an encumbrance than an asset for his Portugal.
