DEAR RONALDO: IT ISN'T ALL ABOUT YOU
14/09/2012
LONDON — An
open letter to Cristiano Ronaldo:
More than a
week has passed since you set your latest phenomenal landmark as a Real Madrid
player, and in the process blanked the fans at Bernabéu stadium.
You scored
twice against Granada. You reached 150 goals for the club in 149 games, a
faster scoring rate than Raúl, than Di Stéfano, Santillana, Puskas or any of
the giants who made Real legendary.
Fabulous.
When you
failed to show joy after the first of those two goals, some of us mistook your
mood for humility. We actually thought that, with the ball going through the
legs of Granada goalkeeper Toni, your gesture was that of a sportsman not
wishing to gloat at a fellow professional’s misfortune. But then it happened
again. It was clear as you pursed your lips and shrugged off the
congratulations of colleagues that something deeper was troubling you.
It is, of
course, a sportsman’s prerogative not to dance around and kiss the badge, or
cuddle teammates, when you do your job. But let’s face it: This isn’t the norm
for a player who, for Sporting Lisbon, for Manchester United and now for Real,
has never been shy of sharing the love. There is a feature-length documentary,
produced by one of your million-dollar sponsors, Castrol, to show off your
prowess. Clearly, you reveled in making that video, which demonstrates that you
are blessed with the perfect body for soccer and the dedication to work those
quite extraordinary skills of coordination and athleticism that make you
literally one in a billion.
From the
day you walked into the Bernabéu, with tens of thousands packing the stadium
just to see you set foot on the turf, you have exuded the self-awareness of
being special in your sport.
So what,
Cristiano, went wrong?
Why, after
refusing to celebrate goals with colleagues and supporters in the home that
guarantees your fortune, did you mysteriously say that you are sad, and the
club knows why.
You are
perhaps too young to have known Greta Garbo, the Swedish film actress who in
midcareer quit Hollywood and spent a life in relative solitude, telling the
news media, “I want to be left alone.”
That was
the lady’s choice. She had made her money, she didn’t much care for the
intrusiveness of fame, and plainly it did not trouble her if she never shared
her talents again with her followers.
You,
Ronaldo, are at a different time and in a different career than Garbo.
The
audience is part of your sport. It can help you win tight matches, and it
deserves to share your ability to be such a game-changer.
Maybe you
saw, or maybe your existence is too self-centered to have seen, the reciprocal
joy that the Olympians — and just as exciting the Paralympians — have just
shared with the world.
It is
incredible to see men and women, sometimes in their teens, achieving far more
than most of us with far less than you have been blessed with, feats of human
striving and unforgettable exuberance. On one leg, or none, in a wheelchair or
on prosthetic limbs, they performed to their maximum. Blind, they played your
game by sound and a sense of movement.
Most of
them laughed and cried because performing sports is about giving it all you have,
and letting the emotions flow.
Many of us
have been to games when your talents were decisive — and not merely the
athletic gifts but the desire to lift a game, lift a performance. There were
times at Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine when you transcended the sum of what
the other 21 players on the field could achieve.
We
applauded that, and you drank in that applause. You have done it so many times,
and if there is a prima dona side to your nature, well, we forgive you that for
all the moments when your feet dance, your shot soars, your spirit takes over a
performance. But what will not do is to turn away from the paying fans in your
home stadium.
A part of
you is public property. We know that Spanish soccer has to suffer some of the
economic drain that is troubling the whole world, and that these are perilous
times when the clubs of La Liga are in debt to the tax authority to the tune of
€750 million, about $960 million.
Real Madrid
is, apparently, the one club that does not owe the government money. And that
is, in part, because Madrid enjoys privileged TV income and indulgent banking
overdrafts whenever it overspends.
What you
get out of that is, to a degree, your own affair. You arrived in Spain at a
time when the government allowed what is known as the “Beckham Law,” allowing
David Beckham and other imported stars to face an eased tax burden. But Beckham
has come and gone, and he was never in any case as talented as you.
Your aides
insist that whatever your reason for sulking, money is not the core issue.
However, the local news media run stories of Real’s president preparing a way
to keep on paying you more than your €12 million annual salary, without the 52
percent tax that other top earners must pay to the government.
If you had
said your sadness was for Spain’s five million unemployed, that would be a
great public-relations play.
If, as many
surmised, the sadness involves other players getting the accolades, that is
less endearing. First it was Lionel Messi picking up FIFA’s Ballon D’Or year
after year. Now it is Andrés Iniesta being honored as the player of 2012 by
UEFA, and for good reason: Iniesta was arguably the outstanding player of the
2010 World Cup, certainly the best in the final match. And Iniesta got Spain
going when it retained the Euro championship title this July.
He’s the
quiet one, sometimes in Messi’s shadow. And, if you need to ask, he wins
people’s hearts as well as their votes not simply because of his skills, but
the pleasure he gives and takes in being a team player.
As good as
you are, it isn’t all about one man.
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