One can sum up Cristiano Ronaldo’s career in two pictures. No, not the five Ballon d’Ors or the Champions League titles that he has won. Both pictures are from different World Cups, captured at just the moment before the zenith and after the nadir of his career.The first is from the 2006 World Cup and the second from the 2026 World Cup. The first has him winking at the bench, a petulant upstart who would go on to dominate the game. The latter saw him in tears, unable perhaps to comprehend that he was no longer the player he used to be. In between those two moments, we saw a player who strove towards greatness, rewrote records, transcended the game and, by the end, couldn’t tell the difference between reality and his delusions.But let’s take a walk down memory lane.In 2006, England met Portugal in a feisty encounter that saw Ronaldo’s Manchester United teammate Wayne Rooney get sent off for putting his foot on the wrong sphere. A proud Portuguese, Ronaldo remonstrated with the referee to get Rooney sent off and then became Public Enemy Number 1 in England by winking at the bench.The English rags, as they are wont to do, lost their rag, calling for Ronaldo’s head, but Sir Alex Ferguson used that moment to create a siege mentality that led to his third great United side, with Rooney and Ronaldo at the core of it.That moment also spurred Ronaldo into becoming the player we know today. While statisticians will prefer the 2007-08 version, when he plundered 42 goals in a single season that ended with United winning the Premier League and Champions League, purists prefer the 2006-07 version, when he was the perfect amalgamation of the teenager of touch and tease and the goal-scoring beast that he would become. Before that, most dribblers were cast into the dustbin of Premier League redundancy as people who couldn’t do it on a cold night in Stoke.Everyone knows what followed next.Ronaldo left rainy Manchester for sweltering Madrid, becoming the most expensive player in history, and became the foundation around which Real Madrid built their new Galacticos, which saw them win four Champions League titles during his tenure. His footballing rivalry with Lionel Messi defined the game for the better part of a decade, but even at Real, Ronaldo’s sphere of influence was decreasing. The marauding winger made fewer and fewer winding runs, instead becoming the player who focused on only one aspect of football: scoring goals. With age, that sphere diminished, to the point that by the time the 2026 World Cup rolled around, it was just the penalty spot.The journey that started with petulance ended pitifully. Ronaldo tried to keep a brave face about it all, channelling his inner Sinatra to claim he left with a “clear conscience”, that he had won three titles with Portugal, and that Portugal had never won a “big trophy before Cristiano”. It sounded more like a man trying to convince himself than the observer. Of course, purists would point out that in the Euro 2016 final, Ronaldo was injured and not even playing when Portugal took the lead. And the jury is still out on whether the two Nations League titles, a tournament designed to give some weight to glorified friendlies, can be considered “big”.Perhaps Ronaldo’s rise and decline feel particularly personal because of the age similarities. When a fan is almost the same age as a footballer, give or take a couple of years, one’s destinies are almost entwined.In 2003, all the United forums were abuzz about a new signing from Sporting Lisbon, a kid named Cristiano. It was even bemusing to learn that the Ronaldo in his name came from an American president rather than the Brazilian Il Fenomeno. We were told that he gave John O’Shea a migraine when Sporting Lisbon played Manchester United in a pre-season friendly and Sir Alex refused to leave before signing him, which saw United players being forced to spend a few extra hours on the bus. One remembers his debut clearly, coming on against Bolton and wearing the famous Number 7 that had been vacated by David Beckham after boots started flying in the dressing room. Who did this guy think he was? How could he wear the number worn by George Best, Eric Cantona and Becks?He came on for Nicky Butt in the 61st minute, a teenager with gangly teeth and awful-looking hair. By the time the match was over, no one quite dared ask if he deserved to wear the shirt. As George Best put it: “It was undoubtedly the most exciting debut performance I’ve ever seen. There have been players who have some similarities [to me], but this lad’s got more than anyone else, especially as he is genuinely two-footed. He can play on either wing, beat players with ease and put in dangerous crosses with his left or right peg. When was the last time you saw that?”He spent six years there, winning three league titles, two League Cups, the FA Cup, the Club World Cup and the Champions League. During his peak, he looked like the amalgamation of several Premier League greats: a man who could head like Shearer, curl the ball like Henry, score a free-kick like Beckham (albeit with a different style) and beat defenders like Ginola.Ronaldo returned to Old Trafford 12 years later and the highlight of his stay was Peter Drury’s commentary: “A walking work of art, vintage, beyond valuation, beyond forgery or imitation. CR7 reunited.” Sadly, that was as good as it got for Ronaldo, as it became evident that while he still had the goalscoring prowess, his presence would often leave a team lopsided. Results turned south and Ronaldo’s old teammate Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who played the best brand of attacking football at United since Sir Alex Ferguson left, was eventually shunted out. Ronaldo eventually had his contract ripped up after giving a Roy Keane-esque interview about the club and he made his way to Saudi Arabia, where even the local laws were bent to his will, allowing him to stay with his unmarried paramour. By the time the World Cup came around, barring hardcore Ronaldo stans like iShowSpeed and Piers Morgan, it had become evident that no matter how much the spirit was willing, the flesh had ebbed away.One meme summed up the dissonance between Ronaldo’s ability and his reality, mocking the state of the Golden Boot Race: Messi (7), Mbappe (7), Haaland (7) and CR7.Perhaps the comparisons with Messi were what made the difference starker. Messi, just a couple of years younger, is playing with more freedom than before, elevating his teammates. Ronaldo, on the other hand, feels like an albatross around his team’s neck. Now, one must point out that while Ronaldo and Messi played for similarly strong teams during their Real Madrid and Barcelona eras, Argentina have always been a far superior footballing nation compared to Portugal. Messi has always been surrounded by better world-class players. The cleanest analogy comes from cricket: Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar were also spoken of in the same breath, but the West Indies never had a team to challenge for the ODI World Cup like India did, though they did end up becoming T20 beasts.Either way, when it came to Ronaldo, the numbers were not even the most painful part. Ronaldo still took the shots, still made the runs, still did the familiar little jumps before a free-kick, still threw his hands up when the pass didn’t arrive, still looked at the referee as if the game owed him one last favour. But the body would no longer obey the mythology. The leap wasn’t there. The half-yard wasn’t there. The sharpness inside the box, that terrifying certainty that he would turn any loose ball into a funeral procession for defenders, was conspicuously absent.
Against Spain, it became impossible to ignore. Portugal were carrying the idea of Ronaldo more than Ronaldo himself. Every attack seemed to arrive at him a second too late or leave him a second too early. The man who once bent entire defences out of shape was now waiting for the game to come to him. And when it did, it no longer came with the old inevitability. In the last moment, when there was someone leaping up, it was the 5ft 8in Bernardo Silva instead of the 6ft 1in Cristiano Ronaldo.That is perhaps why the tears felt so jarring. These weren’t the tears of a man raging against the dying light. They were the tears of an old man who cannot fathom that the world no longer bends to his will, that it is now indifferent to his whims.And for a fan, that is a hard watch. It is easy to mock the vanity, the tantrums, the interviews, the fanboys, the endless need to remind everyone of his own greatness. But it is harder to watch the player who made you fall in love with football’s excesses become a tribute act to himself. In some ways, it is reminiscent of the post-2019 funk of MS Dhoni in the Indian Premier League, another man who, like Voldemort, worships at the altar of the number seven.In 2006, the wink portended a new era of world domination. The tears in 2026 were the end of that mirage. And for those of us who grew up with him, who hated him, loved him, defended him, mocked him and still secretly wanted one last leap at the back post, it was painful because we were no longer watching Ronaldo lose to Spain. We were watching Ronaldo lose to time.
