The views and opinions expressed in this piece are those solely of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of Highsnobiety as a whole.
Cristiano Ronaldo is a difficult man to love. Not in the romantic sense – if I were that way inclined I imagine that loving him would be the easiest, most natural thing in the world. When I say that he’s a difficult man to love, it’s the persona of Ronaldo that I have in mind: the showboating sportsman that swerves between graceless, antagonistic arrogance as he peels away his shirt after burying the winning spot kick in a Champions League final, and abject, stroppy petulance when determined opponents refuse to simply turn over, dig their teeth into the pitch and placidly let him have his way with them. There is no middle ground with Ronaldo, no moments of human vulnerability that let you peer into his heart. Only a ruthless, all-consuming determination to win, no matter the cost.
And this is precisely why so few people like him. He comes across as the sort of guy that would methodically and gleefully feed a litter of newborn puppies through a meat grinder if it were to prolong his career for a day. And he’d do it everyday until all the puppies in the world were churned into mince. From building statues of himself to naming his son “Cristiano Junior,” it’s impossible to bring yourself to love Ronaldo when you know that Ronaldo could only ever truly love himself and his trophies. Quite the opposite: he inspires revulsion.
As I saw him go down injured in the Euro 2016 final, finally conceding tear-streaked defeat after two attempts at playing through a swollen knee, some of those that sat around me began to laugh and cheer. It’s easy to get the impression that not even his team’s own fans like him – they merely endure him because he wins them games. I’ve always loathed him, but watching the raw intensity of his emotion that night, I saw something in Ronaldo that I hadn’t seen before, something that makes him kind of likable.
There’s an enduring narrative in football that Ronaldo’s immense success isn’t merely down to his God-given talents, but rather his unrivaled work ethic. He may be able to do incredible things to a ball, things that are simply impossible to learn, but many sports journalists argue that he reached his lofty peaks through sheer bloody-minded determination, driven by a relentless, unshakeable desire to be the very best that has ever lived. It’s this desire that pushes him to the very outer limits of his talents, and you can see that when you watch him play.
When he charges towards the goal, he doesn’t look like he’s gliding effortlessly upon the wings of his ingrained skill: he pulses and strains as though he’s bench pressing double his weight while someone strangulates him. It’s a wonder how his standard goal celebration doesn’t involve throwing up all over himself and the opposition keeper from the exertion of it all. He has enough innate ability to coast through matches, but his thirst for glory is so obsessive and pathological that you can see him physically squeeze and ring every last drop of potential out of his body as a way of liberating himself from the haunting doubt of what potentially could have been. He doesn’t seem to be driven by adoration or riches, but rather a deeply personal battle, one that he puts on display for the whole world to see; and there’s something so incredibly human and vulnerable in that. It’s free of pretenses and devoid of irony, honest and unfiltered.
As he sat sobbing on the pitch last Sunday, he looked like a man beset by tragedy and consumed by anguish. Afterwards, the way he screamed and gestured on the touchline, flinging his coach around like a ragged doll, he stood exposed and bare before the eyes of the world in a way that few people ever allow themselves to be, even on much smaller stages. I saw –or at least I believe I saw– a purity of emotion that night that I can’t help but admire.
Inevitably, Ronaldo’s entire career has been defined against Lionel Messi’s. They are the two greatest players of their generation and of the modern era, existing in an isolated stratosphere of their own. They might even be the greatest of all time. Football fans and journalists try to separate them, struggling to reach a definitive consensus as to which one is the better player. Realistically, it’s an impossible task, an equation so complex that it cannot be answered. Still, if you were to tally up the world’s opinions they would probably crown Messi the winner, if ever so barely.
And maybe he is the more naturally gifted of the pair, but in contrast to Ronaldo, Messi’s victories seem more effortless. He floats across the pitch like a feather in the wind, but for all his brilliance, his glory doesn’t seem earned – not in the same knee-bursting, laborious way as his arch-rival’s. Not that this makes him deserve it any less, but it does make it seem like a divine gift awarded by the genetic lottery, rather than a monument of his own making. Watching Ronaldo sweat and strain lets you buy into the illusion that you too could hit those same heights of superhuman achievement, if only you could somehow push yourself hard enough and never waver in your determination. It’s as though Messi was born a God, while Ronaldo labored to become one.
You can see this in the way that they weep. In the 25th minute of Sunday night’s game, Ronaldo was the living embodiment of agony. When Argentina lost the Copa America final several weeks earlier, thanks in part to a fumbled Messi penalty, there were tears, but his felt flat and hollow. The prevailing sensation was confusion, rather than genuine sorrow. Because football and victory comes that much more naturally to him, Messi looked lost, like he couldn’t see where it all went wrong because he never has to think about why it goes right – for him, it simply does, because that’s the natural order of things.
Ronaldo, on the other hand, wailed like a wounded animal whose cub has been snatched away by the merciless rifle of fate. He looked like a man robbed by cruel injustice, forced to watch his life’s work burning before his eyes; and because you can vaguely and distantly project yourself onto Ronaldo in a way that’s that a bit less possible with Messi, his pain –and then later, his jubilation– felt that much more visceral, to me at least. And if that doesn't move you at all, then you must have calluses on your heart.
