Португалийн шигшээ багийн ахлагч Криштиану Роналду дэлхийн аваргын шөвгийн 16-д Испанитай хийх тоглолтын өмнө өөрийн карьер болон шүүмжлэгчдийн талаар байр сууриа илэрхийлжээ.
Португали пүрэв гарагт Хорватын эсрэг 2:1-ээр хожиж шөвгийн 16-д шалгарсан бөгөөд энэ тоглолтод Роналду торгуулийн цохилтоор гоолдож, Гонсало Рамос нэмэлт цагт ялалтын гоолыг оруулсан юм. Даваа гарагт Даллас цэнгэлдэхэд болох Испанийн эсрэг тоглолт нь 41 настай довтлогчийн хувьд дэлхийн аваргын зургаа дахь бөгөөд эцсийн тэмцээн байх магадлалтай гэсэн асуултууд хөвөрсөөр байна. Роналду энэ талаар өөрийн хүссэн үедээ шийдвэрээ гаргана гэдгээ мэдэгдэж, шүүмжлэгчдийн үг түүнд нөлөөлөхгүй гэдгийг онцоллоо.
Тэрээр 23 жилийн турш шүүмжлэгчид түүнийг “устгахыг” оролдсон ч амжилтад хүрээгүйг сануулж, шүүмжлэл нь өөрийг нь хүн талаасаа илүү өсөж хөгжихөд тусалдаг гэв. Испанийн залуу од Ламин Ямалыг ирээдүйтэй тоглогч хэмээн магтсан Роналду дэлхийн аваргад түрүүлээгүй байсан ч өөрийн үнэлэмж өөрчлөгдөхгүй гэдгийг тодотгосон юм. Тэрээр даваа гарагийн тоглолтод ялалт байгуулж, тэмцээнээ үргэлжлүүлэх чин хүсэлтэй байгаагаа илэрхийлжээ.
Дэлгэрэнгүй эх сурвалжийг харах
Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
ARLINGTON — Cristiano Ronaldo has heard the eulogies for his World Cup career. On the eve of Portugal’s round-of-16 knockout meeting with Spain, the 41-year-old forward made clear he intends to keep needling the people writing them.
Facing reporters ahead of Monday’s knockout tie at Dallas Stadium, Ronaldo faced the same questions that have followed him at this World Cup: about his critics and whether this is his last one.
Rather than deflect the recurring lines of questioning, he leaned into them, ribbing the room and poking some fun at the detractors who have trailed him for two decades.
“For 23 years you (critics) have been trying to kill me, but you have already realized that it’s not worth it,” he said Sunday, in response to a question about how he deals with his starting spot in Portugal’s team being constantly questioned and criticized. Fox Sports commentator and former French national player Thierry Henry was scathing of Ronaldo’s play after Portugal’s opening draw with DR Congo, saying “the team needs to score, not you need to score.”
Team ccaptain Ronaldo added that the Portuguese are always on his side and that “all the rest is garbage and counts for nothing.”
Portugal reached the last 16 by beating Croatia 2-1 on Thursday, with Ronaldo scoring a penalty (his first goal in a World Cup knockout match) before Gonçalo Ramos headed home a stoppage-time winner. The reward is a rematch with rival Spain, one of the tournament’s favorites, on Monday afternoon in Dallas. For Ronaldo, playing his sixth and final World Cup, the target is the one prize still missing from his résumé.
If one line of questioning visibly wore on him, it was the framing of the tournament as an ending. Reporters kept circling back to whether this is his last World Cup and to invitations to reflect on his career, and Ronaldo met the repetition with bemused, if thinning, patience before batting the premise away.
“I will finish, as I said a few years ago, when I want to, not when you want me to,” he said of the talk of it being his final World Cup. The press, he noted with a trace of amusement, is “always asking the ‘last one’ question,” and at one point he quipped, with humor in his voice, “You guys don’t want me to come again, huh? That’s what you want. I get it, I heard you now.”
If there was pressure, he wasn’t showing it. Ronaldo was loose, quick with a smile and eager to draw a laugh from the gathered press. Asked about the hardest part of playing at 41, Ronaldo deadpanned that it had nothing to do with football. “The most difficult thing is talking to you all, with some of you, the ones who don’t like me, especially,” he said. He bantered with reporters throughout, at one point beckoning a question from a journalist he said he knew didn’t like him. “I remember people’s faces very well.”
Ronaldo was engaged with the media during his pre-match news conference on Sunday. (Paul Ellis / AFP via Getty Images)
Ronaldo insisted that never winning a World Cup title would not change how he sees himself. “I am not going to be more Cristiano for winning the World Cup, or be less Cristiano if I don’t win the World Cup,” he said. Win or lose on Monday, he added, “I leave here with a clear conscience. Not 100 percent, but 1,000 percent.”
He went so far as to thank his detractors for their service. “I learned, after 40 – and I hope to live another 40 years – that it is from the biggest criticisms that we grow the most as people,” Ronaldo said. “And I thank you guys for continuing to do that, because in a way I grow more and more.”
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On the opponent, Ronaldo was more diplomatic. He called Spain a perennial contender with “many talents” and praised their teenage star, the 18-year-old Lamine Yamal — 23 years his junior. “He is a player with a lot of future,” Ronaldo said, before advising him to get used to detractors “as quickly as possible.”
“There are difficult moments, obviously, because we are all human,” Ronaldo acknowledged. “There are days when you, too, (the press) don’t feel like getting up and going to work. In football, since we are always under fire, sometimes it’s harder. But it’s part of the job.”
There were quieter notes. Ronaldo spoke about the tribute Portugal’s players have paid to Diogo Jota, the forward who died a year ago, and said this World Cup had moved him more than any other, less for the football than for the passionate fans and people he’d encountered along the way.
And, if Portugal wins on Monday, he noted, the whole circus simply carries on.
“God willing, that tomorrow is not my last match. God willing,” he said. “That way, you can kill me a little more.” He paused, shrugged and smiled. “Try to kill.”
