Posted on 06/22/2014 2:39:25 PM PDT by Steelfish
Cristiano Ronaldo: Soccer's Perfect Villain Why the Portugal star is routinely chastised for what is perceived to be arrogance and preening self-regard
REED JOHNSON June 22, 2014 Portugal forward Cristiano Ronaldo arrives for a training session Friday at the team's base camp in Campinas. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images It's too early to tell who will be the hero of the 2014 World Cup. But one player already is emerging as the tournament's favorite antihero and consensus whipping boy: Cristiano Ronaldo, the Portuguese and Real Madrid superstar striker.
A longtime bête noire of the international soccer media, Ronaldo routinely gets chastised in the press for what is perceived to be his arrogance and preening self-regard. Although Ronaldo contends that his confidence is misconstrued as chest puffing, he seldom misses a chance to toot his own vuvuzela.
"I don't think I have to show anyone anything," he said at a news conference before Portugal's opening match last week against Germany. "Look at my statistics and my CV—I have nothing to prove. My career has been great so far, and I just want that to continue."
As a writer for Britain's Daily Telegraph dryly noted afterward, "Portugal's talisman has many qualities, but modesty is not one of them."
But after Germany thrashed Portugal 4-0 in Salvador, Bahia, with Ronaldo playing conspicuously subpar, the schadenfreude overflowed from South America to Europe.
"You lost, playboy," chortled a front-page headline in the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, next to a photo of a scowling, purse-lipped Ronaldo. "Ron-NIL-do," the German daily Bild cackled, making a pun out of the striker's failure to net a single goal.
Even Ronaldo's fellow Iberians couldn't resist taking a whack. "A shadow of himself," Spain's El Mundo Deportivo wrote dismissively. Ronaldo also drew stinging criticism for ripping off his captain's armband ....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
He flops like Blake Griffin..., only in the world of Futbol that’s a manly art....
He thought it was funny when he got an English player red carded in the last World Cup, until he had to go back to where he earned his living at the time (England).
He will never be Brazilian (Fat) Ronaldo...
The psychic clam was right!
The “Ronaldo” part of his name was in tribute to Reagan.
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