Ronaldo carrying Portugal on his shoulders.
The Algrave may have basked in glorious sunshine across the country, but there were gloomy faces amongst the football fans, still wearing their nation’s jerseys but with their heads bowed down and shoulders hunched in despondency.
There was a point in the qualification round when everyone would have thought that Portugal and Argentina might not qualify for this summer’s football extravaganza in South Africa. It would have meant to deprive the world audiences of the two best players of the game, Messi and Ronaldo. What would a world cup be without these two? But thanks to their playoff win against Bosnia and Argentina’s win against Peru that the world was saved the disappointment of not having the two mesmeric players at the World Cup in South Africa.
Argentina have already made a winning start to their campaign with a low scoring yet fully convincing 1-0 win against Nigeria and tonight its Portugal’s turn.
After two wins against Bosnia, the team made sure that football’s ultimate showman can take the centre stage at the World Cup so that the gloom was lifted from an entire nation’s face. The mood is optimistic again, people dare to believe again and have a newfound faith once again.
And the homeland is pinning all his hopes on one man and one man only, and Ronaldo is not the kind of a player to shy away from such expectations.
The former World player of the year and Ballon D’or winner has declared that he wants to become the greatest player in the game and he can take a giant step towards his destiny in South Africa.
Over the past 20 months or so, defeating Denmark and Sweden, scoring at home against the lowly Albania has been beyond Ronaldo and his team mates. However, the uncrowned king of mesmeric stopovers is hoping to guide his team through a tough group featuring the five time world champions, Brazil, the hope of Africa, Cote D’ Iviore and the unpredictable and under defensive North Korea.
The free scoring forward who scores goals for fun has not been able to replicate his form on the international stage, he failed to score during his nation’s entire qualification campaign but his confidence has not shrunk, claiming that he was saving himself for the showpiece event itself and may God have mercy on other teams if he is proven right.
Yet, the usually beaming with confidence forward in an unfamiliar show of fragility admitted “I do not play alone, it’s not enough to have just two or three players. For a team to win the World Cup you must not necessarily have 11 good players but seven or eight of a very good standard”.
After his 80 million pound acquisition from Manchester United, it was the start of an instant love affair in the Spanish capital so much so that some papers even claimed ‘God came disguised as CR 9’ and saved Real Madrid from disappearing into mediocrity. AS, Spain’s second largest sports daily went on to say that he came and saved the La Liga.
And with such pressure on the forward, Ronaldo did not disappoint as he scored better than a goal per match in his first 11 games for the club but then suffered an injury and finished with 25 goals for the season. Despite so many goals in his opening season, daggers were drawn at him a bit too soon but he still played a terrific second half of the season.
Ronaldo describe all his doubters who think that he has not been able to emulate his feats at the international as people who don’t understand anything about football and he is right to some extent too. He was the star performer in the last World Cup for his country and if it was not for him, Portugal wouldn’t even be in South Africa.
He has the ability to turn a game around individually. The game against Mallorca last season is ample proof about his capabilities. In the match, a tepid Real was trailing by one goal to nil only for the man to turn the game on its head by scoring a hat trick. Ronaldo has done that on umpteen occasions and no one out there would bet against him on doing the same again.
Over the course of next few weeks, the man from Madeira has the perfect opportunity to silence his critics and make his mark on the greatest competition in the world.
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