The Two Ronnies: Ronaldo's no-goal reveals awareness of decline

Growing old is full of ironies. For Cristiano Ronaldo, a single one now dominates. A man who has spent his sporting life determined to be seen not as one of a pair of great players, half of Ronaldo and Messi but as the one and only, the GOAT, out on his own, has, in his footballing dotage, become two versions of himself.

There are two Ronaldos now. First is the artist formerly known as a Manchester United player, the on-field statue who is a shadow of the player who terrorized the Premiership as a precocious youth and then turned himself into his era’s most athletic poacher. The second is the off-field Ronaldo, a man touring television studios, compensating for the failing legs with ever greater displays of arrogance.

It was tempting, during Ronaldo’s fateful interview with Piers Morgan, where he began disgruntled and ended positively Trumpian in his cheapshots on Wayne Rooney’s looks, to picture a man of extreme confidence, who simply refused to believe that he was ageing. This Ronaldo appeared to be one who could not understand why his manager no longer perceived his value, who was certain that he was a victim of tactical tweaks rather than the cause of his team being outnumbered and unable to press effectively.

The World Cup though, and particularly the moment when Ronaldo refused to accept the evidence that he had not in fact, as he claimed, got the final touch on Bruno Fernandes’ cross, showed a different side to the equation.

He knows. He must do.

He knows that this is his last world cup, that every goal is potentially his last in a Portugal shirt, at the world cup, the last chance to add to or reach the records he craves – as leading goalscorer in international football for one, as Portugal’s all-time leading world cup scorer.

We glimpsed in the tantrum, in the publicly perpetuated deception – as it was subsequently confirmed to be by Adidas’ hitherto hidden ball tracking data – an awareness of time ticking. Perhaps there was something else too, a horrified denial that he hadn’t leaped high enough. Does he know, deep down, that when he was still Manchester United or Real Madrid’s Prince Charming and not reduced to a sort of footballing Lord Farquaad, he would have been able to reach that peach of a pass?

The old Ronaldo was goal-hungry of course, but he would ultimately have picked himself up and backed himself to shrug off FIFA awarding the goal to his teammate. Who needs to go and provide official documentation to try and claim a goal that wasn’t his? There would be more. Forget that one. Now, for Ronaldo football is a numbers game, one in which the numbers of number one matter more than what numbers two to eleven do.

Confidence is an essential part of top-level sport. Ronaldo would not have got to where he is without a level of self-belief that inevitably crosses occasionally into arrogance. Some of the other great sportsmen and women of all time have carried themselves in not entirely dissimilar manners. And where he has always cultivated an on-field reputation as an egotist, Ronaldo has also given frequently and generously to charity over the years.

But if, as the no-goal tantrum suggests, he knows that time is running out, that he is not the player he was, now he must accept the second part of the great truth that all sportspeople face eventually.

Age is the defender who cannot be dribbled past, the unbeatable wall defending a free kick, the goalkeeper who always guesses right. Ronaldo knows it, even if he can’t yet bring himself to hear the full-time whistle and shake hands. Hopefully he finds the grace to do so before the end.