Get sentenced to two years in prison in the afternoon, come out and score a hat-trick in a World Cup classic against Spain that night. Cristiano Ronaldo never ceases to find new ways to astonish the world.
Take Ronaldo out and the match was not a contest. The match was scarcely a contest with him in it. Portugal were hopelessly outclassed. Spain, with Koke and Busquets running the midfield, dominated everything. But Ronaldo scored three goals from two and a half chances. It was beyond efficiency. It was alchemy.
It seems like more than genius – it’s destiny. Ronaldo covered less distance than any outfield player who finished the game. And yet he decided the whole game. He somehow manages to be central to all the key moments while appearing to do scarcely anything else.
The move that led to his second goal was typical. How did Ronaldo end up unmarked at the edge of Spain's box to fire in a shot that David de Gea – de Gea! – spilled into the net? Because when the ball came in he was standing 10 yards offside, in a position where he could not be marked and could not affect the play. He was sitting out the play, pretty much. And yet, thanks to an unexpected bounce and turn, the ball arrived at his feet just as the defenders moved back to play him onside. From the point of view of Sergio Ramos, jogging across and helpless to prevent the shot, it must have seemed drawn to Ronaldo's feet by some diabolical force – which, not satisfied with presenting the ball to him, stuck around to help his shot sneak past De Gea as well.
That force has been on Ramos’s side often enough. The confrontation between him and Ronaldo was one of the fascinating narrative strands of a match that was more tangled with them than any group game in recent World Cup memory.
At the Champions League final last month, cracks in the relationship between Ramos and Ronaldo had become apparent. Ramos was disgusted when Ronaldo announced within half an hour of the match finishing that he was thinking about leaving the club: you think you’re bigger than this club? A match between Portugal and Spain can’t really tell us who has been the real MVP at Real Madrid these last few years – the goalscoring genius, or the big-balled captain – but that’s what people were thinking.
Likewise, what happened between the 22 players on the slippy surface in Sochi bore no real relation to the question of whether the president of the Spanish FA, Luis Rubiales, is a genius or an idiot. But when you sack your manager two days before the World Cup, you become a helpless hostage to narrative. The scoreboard decides your fate. If Spain won, Rubiales was a genius, and sacking the stuffed shirt Lopetegui was a masterstroke. If Spain lost, then Rubiales was a fool who had put his ego before his country – how could he have sacked the undefeated Lopetegui just when he looked poised to lead Spain to glory?
When Spain kicked off they passed it straight back to Ramos, the boss, to get the passing game rolling. A photographer had snapped a piece of paper with the game plan: “Objective: play fast!” it said, but Spain’s style in the beginning was patient rather than rapid.
The eye sought out Ronaldo, how does he try to get the better of Ramos? But Ronaldo hasn’t got to where he is today by smashing head-on into every obstacle. He was nowhere near Spain’s captain. He was looking elsewhere for the weak link.
When the ball was headed down from the left he was waiting between the Spanish lines. He swatted David Silva away with a flare of the back muscles, then zeroed in on his Real Madrid team-mate Nacho. He is 33, an age when most players have lost the burst of pace that took him past Nacho down the outside, but of course Ronaldo is not like most players. Too quick for Nacho, who couldn't pull out of the trip in time. Ramos vented his frustration at the referee, the strutting alpha getting to know how the Maginot Line once felt. You can't stop him if he doesn't even come near you.
If the match will probably be remembered as the greatest night of Ronaldo’s international career, you hope it will go down as the worst of De Gea’s. Not only did he give away that awful second goal, he set up his wall in the wrong place for the third. He nearly conceded another to Ronaldo when running out of his line, only to be saved by Pique. And he never got to make any amends for these mistakes, because Portugal did not have another shot on target in the entire game.
Spain had come back brilliantly from Ronaldo's initial blows. Diego Costa had looked isolated in the first 20 minutes but he scored a tremendous individual goal to equalise, aided by just the hint of a forearm smash into the throat of Pepe, then scored a second equaliser from Busquets's knockdown. When Nacho made up for giving away the penalty by steering in a brilliant 30-yard volley, Spain looked to be cruising to a deserved victory that would confirm the genius of president Rubiales.
As his team needed him more and more, Ronaldo did less and less. Jose Fonte, the only outfield player who had run less than him, passed him out in the distance covered stakes around 76 minutes. Most of the time Spain had the ball and Ronaldo walked slowly about in the space behind Jordi Alba, occasionally waving his arms in frustration. On Portugal's rare attacks he would come alive only when it looked as though the ball might come into the box – suddenly he was on his tip-toes, jockeying for position – then the ball would be lost, and every fibre in his body would suddenly sag and droop and come to a complete stop. It was over.
Then Pique gave away a free kick 25 yards out with a silly foul. Ronaldo placed the ball, scooched up his shorts and stared towards goal.
Surely not. Not even he can score this goal at this moment.
Surely not?
Oh Cristiano. You have got to be kidding me.
