Even before the football had reached Cristiano Ronaldo’s feet in the opening minutes of Ireland’s game against Portugal on Thursday night, the booing started. It continued throughout the night in the Aviva stadium.
It was a dissonant, unexpected chorus not least because there was no obvious reason for the Irish crowd to boo one of the undisputed sports stars of the 21st century. Was it because there happened to be a large number of Liverpool fans at the game? Was it because Ronaldo had crushed Ireland with those outrageously late goals in the Algarve stadium in September? Or was it simply that the crowd felt uncertain of the correct etiquette for watching a footballer who for 15 years has operated in a place beyond the boundaries of graspable, normal existence?
It was as though by hugging him she could finally confirm – for the crowd as well as herself – that Ronaldo was real
The booing continued throughout the game but was instantly replaced by a spontaneous roar of approval when the crowd witnessed the exchange between Ronaldo and Addison Whelan, the young Irish fan who ran out on the pitch and made a beeline towards her hero. She was already tearful as she put her arms out for a hug. It was as though by hugging him she could finally confirm – for the crowd as well as herself – that Ronaldo was, in fact, real; that he was more than a football apparition in the various guises of Manchester United, Real Madrid, Juventus and Portugal.
The highest compliment anyone can be paid in Ireland is that they’d give you the shirt off their back. Then Ronaldo gave the young Irish fan the shirt off his back. It was a pleasant November night in Dublin but after a frustrating match, Ronaldo took an extra moment to exchange a few words with her. It was a reminder that in the company of children, Ronaldo seems to temporarily forget the presence of the cameras – and the cameras are always present – and allows himself to be unguarded.
So he walked off the field having left the ostensibly hostile Irish crowd completely disarmed and howling approval with that famous torso, not so much ripped at this stage as knotted, on display as a reminder of his freakish longevity and staying power.
Ronaldo exists in a peculiar orbit, transmitting the radiance of the star Betelgeuse as his fame travels light years beyond his sport. Like the other day stars – Messi and James and Federer and Brady and Jordan – he has made the transition from mere prodigious brilliance to a living, breathing trademark while still operating at the peak of his sport. So when he drops into the locality, it is like watching a comic superhero come to life.
The transformational impact of his time at Juventus was measured not so much in titles won as the commercial storm he created to the delight of the business side of the house, with revenue rocketing by £30 million in his first season and their social media following doubling. His international appeal was much broader than that of Juventus, for all of the club’s august history. Ronaldo has 600 million “followers” on social media: an absurd figure within an absurd concept.
Combined with his extraordinary ability to maintain the exceptional athletic qualities – the burst of speed, the frighteningly quick and powerful vertical jump – at the age of 36, he is an outlier. Ronaldo made his debut in 2002, the same year as Wayne Rooney first appeared for Everton. He has been a star attraction in two entirely distinct English football eras. How has he kept going for so long?
One clue lies in that hewn physique. There are any number of comparative photographs of the younger Ronaldo, operating at a time when the football industry was just beginning to seriously invest in the educational worth of diet and physiognomy. He has sculpted himself an entirely new and different body. Plenty of anecdotes exist about Ronaldo’s machine-like adherence to the monotonous season-in, season-out demands of diet and repetitive exercise and hard work. His appetite for it is ceaseless. “Right now I have the biological age of 23,” he claimed immodestly and accurately four years ago. He wants, having won it all, to keep winning it all.
Many in the Aviva on Thursday were probably watching Ronaldo play in the flesh for the first and only time
In Dublin, the crowd could see that. All of the professional camera lenses were trained on Ronaldo on Thursday night but Eoin Noonan of Sportsfile came away with a fascinating photograph. It was a still of the glorious airborne collision between Shane Duffy and Ronaldo. Duffy has his eyes fixed on the ball but Ronaldo is distracted as he grapples with the sensation of a meaty Derry forearm and hand placed around his neck. Duffy was called for a foul that was debatable. The Irish man has made a career out of brilliant, full-hearted interventions like this. But the thing is: so has Ronaldo. For all the shimmering runs and fabulous goals, there he was, invested in winning a routine high ball on a routine international night.
It was a great image and a reminder that for 20 years Ronaldo has avoided the best and worst intentions of tough, tough defenders. He’s been kicked about. And he preens and moans and works the referees. But he always comes back for more.
Many of those in the Aviva on Thursday were probably watching Ronaldo play in the flesh for the first and only time. It’s a curious sensation: he is right there, close enough to be within earshot for those seated at the front and yet completely unreachable. It is like watching a projection, beamed into a familiar environment for the evening rather than a fully fleshed-out human being.
The public perception of Ronaldo has been carefully managed over the years, through an approved documentary, occasional interviews, his social media feeds and the on-field iconography. The past few years have carried with them the dark undercurrent of a rape allegation and criminal investigation into an incident that took place in Las Vegas in 2009. Both parties are consistent as to what happened. The criminal proceedings were dropped. It comes down to whom the public wishes to believe and many have entrenched views on the subject. Nike stated it was “deeply concerned by the disturbing allegations” while Ronaldo has flatly rejected them.
The communal desire to be part of Ronaldo's world is about the only explicable reason for the sustained booing by the Ireland fans
But it’s the only episode in his football life over which he could not exert full control. Away from the Saturday afternoons in Old Trafford, where he is a figure of worship or the big European nights or those international nights when he turns up as Portugal’s emblem, Ronaldo’s private life is completely shielded.
The privileges of normality – still attainable for successful professional footballers like Shane Duffy – have long been out of reach to him. He moves through the twilight world of mega-wealth, ushered here and guarded there, collecting things, posting updates of his children. The football field is the only place where he is just one of 22 other men – but the understanding is that he will, through his once-in-a-lifetime artistry, separate himself from the rest before the game is out.
The communal desire to be part of Ronaldo’s world is about the only explicable reason for the sustained booing by the Ireland fans. It was an attempt to share his world for an hour or so of his life. Of course, he heard those booing and, through the intense concentration and hauteur of his on-field guise, he might have registered a faint sensation of surprise. He is used to adoration. But it is doubtful that he was in any way bothered or troubled. The football life of Cristiano Ronaldo is far too distant and inexplicable for that.
