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The Tears of a Genius

Football's Love-Hate Relationship with Cristiano Ronaldo

By Cathrin Gilbert and Lothar Gorris

No one scores more goals, and no one plays better than Cristiano Ronaldo. The Portuguese player ought to be the star of the European Championship -- if only it weren't for his moments of insanity.

Cristiano Ronaldo is lying on the center circle, his face in the grass, looking as if he were sobbing. The other Manchester United players have already joined their goalkeeper and the fans in the stands. It would be interesting to know why Ronaldo is weeping. Is he ecstatic over his team's victory in this epic battle, which finally ended after almost three hours? Or is he ashamed because he failed? He lies there for about two minutes, and yet no one pays any attention to him.

In the Champions League final against FC Chelsea, which took place on May 21 in Moscow, Ronaldo scored Manchester United's single goal. He dominated the match with his dribbling and running and he could have been the great hero of the evening. But then it came to the penalty shootout and one of those Ronaldo moments. He kissed the ball, briefly tried to fake out the goalkeeper, and tapped the ball -- right into the goalkeeper's hands. It was a bad penalty kick -- embarrassing and arrogant.

When he returned to his teammates, there was no consolation or sympathy. He stood there for a moment, looking as if he didn't belong, kicking water bottles through the center circle. When FC Chelsea missed the second penalty kick, Ronaldo sank to the grass. He is probably the world's best football player, but that doesn't mean that fans adore him.

Fans love players like FC Chelsea's John Terry, who wept on a friend's shoulder only a few meters away from Ronaldo. Terry also failed in the penalty kick, but he slipped and couldn't help it. In those few minutes, he must have aged by years, his crumpled face revealing how much he took the failed penalty kick to heart. Terry plays a straightforward, tough game. He is one of the best defenders in the English Premier League and a player who doesn't spare anyone -- neither the opponent nor himself, especially not himself. He is a soldier of football, a team player and a fighter, one who shows greatness even in defeat. He is everything that Cristiano Ronaldo will never be.

This year Ronaldo's team, Manchester United, won the English championship and the Champions League. Ronaldo scored 31 goals in 34 league matches, breaking the 40-year-old club record of Manchester United legend George Best. He also scored the most goals in the Champions League. He will be the head of the Portuguese team at Euro 2008. Trainer Scolari has named him team caption, and of course Ronaldo will try to do what Portuguese football legend Luís Figo never achieved: win the European Championship.

Ronaldo's body can do things that others cannot do. No one is as fast and agile, nor is anyone more inventive or cunning. He plays for himself, eager to shine and outwit the opposing team. Ronaldo is constantly trying to prove that he is the best, an aim that was also in evidence at the Champions League final in Moscow's Lushniki Stadium. He is the boy wonder of football, 23 years old, and it would be a disaster if he ever grew up. The question is whether things would maybe work just as well without his lunacy and without these Ronaldo moments.

Probably not.

Worlds Apart

He has been in Manchester since 2003 and now earns €156,000 ($242,000) a week. His house, which he leaves only for football matches or for photo shoots, has a swimming pool and a movie theater. A professional football player in England lives in a sealed-off world.

It is a world which appears to be sealed off even from Ronaldo's mother, Maria Dolores dos Santos Aveiro. She lives on Madeira, an island in the Atlantic settled by Portuguese seafarers. She sits in her living room, her cabinets brimming with her son's trophies. The British tabloids are stacked on her lap. She has put on her horn-rimmed glasses, but she doesn't speak English. She knows the letters, but the words make no sense to her. "I look at everything they write about Cristiano," she says. "It makes me feel closer to him."

He bought his mother a row house with a view of the ocean, and he flies her in to attend Champions League matches. She was also in Moscow, of course, but Ronaldo hasn't visited his mother at home in Madeira in two years.

He comes from Santo Antónia, a poor neighborhood high up in the cloud-covered hills above the capital. The house where his parents used to live is now just a ruin.

He was a difficult child. If he felt unfairly treated, he would slap other children in school. He once threw a chair at a teacher. At 12, he left Madeira to attend a boarding school operated by Sporting Lisbon. He was 17 when he played as a pro for the first time, scoring two goals in his second match. After a match between Sporting Lisbon and Manchester United, it was the ManU players who urged manager Alex Ferguson to sign the talented youngster.

Ronaldo was 18 at the time, and he cost Manchester €18 million ($28 million). He was supposed to replace David Beckham, and he was even given Beckham's number seven shirt, which was Ferguson's idea. George Best and Eric Cantona, the great rebels in Manchester United club history, also wore the number seven on their backs.

At first they called him the "circus horse" in England: too much show, not enough toughness. With the gel in his hair, the diamonds in his ear, his dancing around the ball, his arrogant smile and his dives out of nowhere, Ronaldo behaved like someone who in fact deserved a good beating.