Today I felt ashamed for my country.
Not because my country or my national team lost, or did something wrong, but because a large part of the Portuguese are "spitting" on a person who has already brought so much joy to our country and has already taken the name of Portugal to the four corners of the world.
This only confirms a phrase that I often say in relation to athletes and sports:
In sports, it only takes a second to go from beast to bestial or from bestial to beast.
Honestly, I cannot understand how people can forget so quickly all that Cristiano Ronaldo has done for our country and our national team.
Yes, it is true that in the last two years he began to demonstrate that he could no longer be at the same level as in other years when he carried the national team in qualifying for European or World Cups, as well as in the final phase of the same.
But did Cristiano take the Portuguese national team on his shoulders that much?
Let's look at the numbers:
In qualifying for the European Championship, Cristiano Ronaldo scored 11 goals, being the 2nd best scorer.
In the group stage, Cristiano Ronaldo scored 5 of the 7 goals scored by Portugal in the group stage (2 goals in the victory against Hungary, 1 goal in the defeat against Germany and 2 goals in the draw against France) making Portugal qualify as the best ranked third.
If not for Cristiano, Portugal would not have passed the group stage.
In qualifying for the World Cup, Cristiano Ronaldo scored 15 goals.
In the group stage Cristiano Ronaldo scored 4 of the 5 goals scored by Portugal (3 in the draw with Spain and 1 in the victory against Morocco).
In the group stage he scored 2 of the 4 goals scored by Portugal and in the semi-final he scored 1 goal in the victory against Wales.
These were just some of the competitions in Cristiano's long career, I could continue to analyze more years that we would see even more the dependence that the national team had on Cristiano Ronaldo to be present in the final stages of European or world championships.
How is it possible for people to say that he never gave anything to Portugal and that he didn't take Portugal on his back?
I find this ingratitude and a very short memory, but I also know that this is something that the social press encourages, after all yesterday after Portugal won 6-1 against Morocco in the round of 16 of the World Cup, there were several times when one of the questions to the players and to the coach was how Cristiano was doing after being on the bench at the beginning, if there was any kind of negative reaction on his part.
Clearly, like any sportsman, he must not have liked not being in the starting line-up, but that's why the press is always looking to find reasons for a scandal around Ronaldo, it's too much.
Trying to sell that Cristiano didn't celebrate the victory with the rest of the team and didn't thank the Portuguese present is just the culmination of everything, as we can see in the video below, he told his teammates to go greet the fans.
https://twitter.com/Sporting_CPAdep/status/1600432640527515648?t=VQcohNPz84jI6lE-gPlW_w&s=35
- Sporting_CPAdep
However, showing this does not sell news or keep people on the news to watch.
If Cristiano was Spanish or Brazilian, or another nationality, he would have much more affection and compassion from the fans.
He may be close to the end of his career and no longer able to do the same things, but we cannot forget everything he has done for our national team or even in clubs and the individual awards he has won.
Please show respect and value to something that will no longer be seen on television, and we never know if there will be a player who can do the same as he did for our country.
