Tommy Martin: Has Cristiano Ronaldo gone back to being a cod?
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The debate about Cristiano Ronaldo’s display in Monday night’s Euro 2024 last 16 encounter between Portugal and Slovenia boiled down to where one stood in relation to the immortal question, once famously posed by Eamon Dunphy, as to whether that guy Ronaldo is, indeed, a cod.
Were the tears shed by the Portuguese captain upon having his extra-time penalty saved by Slovenia goalkeeper Jan Oblak the self-pitying act of an attention-seeking narcissist, or evidence of the emotional toll of years carrying a nation’s hopes on his shoulders? Was it the human side of the superhuman or the baby side of the big baby? Was he showing how much he cared, or simply how much he cared about himself? All different versions of the cod question.
Perhaps it is the final indignity for the aging superstar to have the cod question resurface after years of seemingly having it settled in his favour. It is as if Ronaldo made a deal with the devil in order to score all those goals and win all those Ballon D’Or awards but that now the devil has come to call in the debt and the devil is a veteran Irish broadcaster/journalist cum TV football pundit.
In many ways, it is the ultimate lesson in mortality. No matter what greatness you achieve, the same fate awaits us all: ashes to ashes, cod to cod.
But aside from existential matters, there was something else that jarred about the descent of the football legend into a mid-match snottery mess. Not the sight of a famous footballer crying, which is a familiar image in itself. Indeed, any major tournament that does not feature a high-profile player in a state of blubbering distress is barely a major tournament at all.
Whether it is Paul Gascoigne at Italia ’90 or assorted Brazilians before and after their 7-1 thumping by Germany at the 2014 World Cup, there has long been acceptance that the emotional stakes in a tournament match can, at any moment, make a team of hardened professional athletes resemble the full-nappied clientele of a particularly negligent crèche.
No, the problem with Ronaldo was not that he was a crying footballer, but that he was 39-year-old crying footballer. Ultimately, whether you believe Ronaldo is a cod or a god, here was a man pushing 40 crying about a football match. Surely he was a bit long in tooth for this sort of carry on?
For all that society has become more open about emotions and stuff and that men in particular are encouraged to share their feelings and all that, there are still levels to this sort of thing. A teenage gymnast falling off the balance beam in an Olympic final is permitted to cry.
An actor using the occasion of winning an Oscar to pay tribute to their recently deceased labrador would be allowed a quick blub. The winner of a TV talent show upon learning that their prize is to be contracted in perpuity as a minimum wage hit slave for Simon Cowell can let loose the waterworks at will.
But it is expected that by the advent of a man’s fifth decade he will have arrived at a proper accounting of life’s trials and tribulations; that he will have acquired perspective, the understanding that the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. That, aside from births, deaths and marriages, there is a time to cry but at least wait to get extra-time out of the way first.
Don’t get me wrong, there are things that a 39-year-old man can cry about. When someone has parked across two bays in the supermarket car park. When the barman says he has to change the keg. Watching the final scene of The Shawshank Redemption. Watching Rory McIlroy at a major.
When his children tell him they love him. When his children tell him they hate him. When he sees the bill for his children’s braces. The final scene of Terminator 2. Whenever the opening bars of Put ‘Em Under Pressure come on the radio. When he finally sits down to watch Match of the Day but finds it hasn’t recorded because the DVR memory is full thanks to someone mistakenly series linking The Chase. The final scene of (but only after half a bottle of Bailey’s).
This list is not exhaustive but precludes the scenario of losing your shit when you are the most famous footballer in the world who has won everything in the game and are captaining your country at a crunch moment in a major tournament and have missed a penalty but the game is still goalless with plenty time left and, oh yeah, did I mention you are 39-fricking-years-old? To venture a phrase no longer in common usage – pull yourself together man.
All this comes down to that old question of growing old gracefully. Some excuse Ronaldo’s carry on as evidence of his relentless will, his desire to rage against the dying of the light, to strive for more and more even as time looms as his final opponent. But really, when you are hitting 40 the only thing you should be striving for is to keep your blood pressure in check.
Ronaldo could take some heed of his former captain at Manchester United, Roy Keane. Keane has been using his presence on the podcast to dispense life advice to his famously busy former teammate Gary Neville, whose business empire runs parallel to his career as a football pundit.
Between podcast duties, Neville is forever dashing to and from business meetings, his harried demeanour in contrast to Keane’s bearded Zen. “There’s no point being successful,” the Mayfield maharishi counselled this week, “if you can’t find time for people. There’s no point having millions in the bank. This is not success in life. People say ‘I’ve made a fortune’, but if you can’t find the time for your friends and your family, forget about it!”
Once fuelled by an insatiable desire to win at all costs, Keane is now literally the model for contented middle age, after Adidas hired him as an ambassador for their outdoor wear range, basically clothes for rambly, dog-walking fellas who can’t be arsed ironing something. As looks go, it’s not for everyone, but at least no-one can accuse you of being a cod.