BackRonaldo’s year of reckoning?
This Portuguese forward will be counted among football legends if his country wins the World Cup
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Since the night he cantered away with the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (Fifa) Ballon d’Or award, Cristiano Ronaldo seems to be flying on a course that could only have been scripted by the gods. Football’s most brutal punisher within the box, Ronaldo has conquered many a milestone with impetuous ease and picked up the superhero tag with his rare but heart-warming philanthropic gestures—from aiding poor children requiring expensive surgeries to joining the fight against the deadly motor neuron disease—even as he promotes a host of commercial products. Yet the World Cup trophy has been elusive.
“We know that Spain, Brazil, Germany, Argentina, they are favourites, which is fantastic for us. But I am quite confident to do it. We have a group, a difficult group, in my opinion, and we are going to go step by step, game by game," Real Madrid’s Portuguese forward told the media in Spain last month, when asked about the 2014 Fifa World Cup, which starts on 12 June. An unstoppable force who has been one of football’s most lethal finishers, Ronaldo knows the World Cup in Brazil presents him with the opportunity to get the monkey off his back and lay claim to being one of the greatest. The fact that Portugal are not pre-tournament favourites could be a game changer—“it is good for us; it takes out a lot of pressure. It will be a fantastic World Cup for us," said Ronaldo.
At 29, Pelé was God of all he surveyed, a double World Cup winner, just months away from an unmatched third. Diego Maradona and Zinedine Zidane too attained their world champion tags before their 30th birthdays. At 29, Ronaldo, one of modern football’s biggest superstars, has won virtually every piece of silverware in football but is yet to get his hands on the game’s Holy Grail, the Fifa World Cup.
So far, it looks as if it could be his year.
Sprinting past records with unbelievable ease, Ronaldo has cased himself in the aura of someone who is standing on the cusp of football immortality. Success is something the talented Ronaldo has pursued relentlessly, surmounting all obstacles as he rushes forward to capture the imagination and respect of the purists. Tales of his arrogance are unending; the media feeds on him as prime-time content, with even ridiculous sightings of billboards of him, in underwear, in Madrid making headlines now and then. But look past the public relations machinery that works relentlessly to create Ronaldo the superstar, and there is an extremely professional athlete, seizing every moment to better his game.
“He wants to be the best around. It infuriates him when he loses, he cannot stand it. It’s true that sometimes, in the dressing room, it’s fun to lose just to make him mad," Real Madrid defender and teammate Raphael Varane said of Ronaldo, while speaking to French premium pay TV channel Canal+ on 7 April. The French defender, who is slowly rising through the ranks at Los Blancos, admits Ronaldo has been a towering influence on the team, especially on youngsters like him. In fact, in the same interview, Varane goes on to say, “He is friendly, he always has something to help you progress."
Ronaldo’s obsession with footballing perfection has taken him on the ultimate ride, from the relative obscurity of Madeira to the hallowed portals of Old Trafford in the UK, and now to the majestic Santiago Bernabéu, home to the Galácticos. As Portuguese great Luís Figo, one of Ronaldo’s childhood idols, once said, “There are some things Ronaldo can do with a football that make me touch my head and wonder how on earth he did it." But the 29-year-old, who had the unflattering moniker “crybaby" in his childhood, knows that only the ultimate prize will earn him his place among the greats.
Sanjeeb Mukherjea is the cricket editor of CNN-IBN.
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