From getting criticised to silencing his haters, this Cristiano Ronaldo is for you. Despite facing too much hate from his last performance against DR Congo, Ronaldo shut the mouths of his haters in a match against Uzbekistan. The 41-year-old Ronaldo scored two brace goals and announced on camera that he is back. Well, this was just the upper tip of an ice berg; many things were going on before. From a fight with his team to getting trolled for a whole for his fewer touches in the last. Well, to know how Cristiano silenced his hater at the beginning of the match, read the blog carefully.
Ronaldo Silenced Haters
After the match with DR Congo, everybody was behind Ronaldo, from fans to football analysts, everybody was criticising him. But this all changed on 23 June, CR7 stepped in and shut their mouth with two brace goals. At the age of 41, Cristiano still had it in him. But why was everybody behind, why were each of his haters criticising him, and even the analysts were taking shots at him? Well, this all started after the brilliance of others. To know the back story of this, read the next section.
The Downfall- Portugal 1- 1 DR Congo
The story starts on 17 June, a few hours before, Ronaldo’s arch rival scored a hat-trick, Mbappe scored two goals, and so did Haaland. The pressure was on Cristiano to score and stay in the competition. But he didn’t, even in states where he had fewer touches than the goalkeepers in that. The Portuguese didn’t as they should have and scored a line end in a 1-1 draw. Ronaldo had 25 touches, 3 shots and a chance which he missed. This was the 10th consecutive World Cup match in which the Portuguese forward had failed to score. And the situation goes worse as the internet starts the goat debate again.
Row of Criticism
When Portugal drew with DR Congo, the world stood on its feet. Instead of criticising the whole team, they were behind Cristiano. Twitter, Instagram and any other social platform were full of criticism only for one man. People started comparing him to Messi and restarted the old goat debate again. The report wrote” the day after Lionel Messi showed why he remains in the Argentina squad, Portugal were perhaps given a reminder why Cristiano Ronaldo should not be in their squad. ” Football legend Thierry Henry also said, ” one thing is important, people at home, the team need to score, not your goat only needs to score”.
After the match, Portuguese players were seen applauding for their fans, but not for themselves. Ronaldo himself escaped the weight of it. He describes that moment as the dark time which he went through at that time.
Pressure Before Uzbekistan
Ronaldo was goalless for the 5th World Cup match. He hasn’t scored a non-penalty goal in any of the major tournaments since 2021. The voices of his haters were growing louder, and pressure was out of the roof. Before the match, calls to drop him for the next match were from everywhere, conflict between teammates, loss of unity in the team because of one player and many other things. But in an interview, the player and coach defend. After this, it was time to show Hatter what Ronaldo can do under pressure. He rises.
Rise From Dark
After all that criticism, now it was time for redemption. The venue was perfect, fans were in the thousands, and from the very first whistle, the team looked different. They were fast, aggressive, hungry to score, nothing like the last match. Ronaldo in the front looked fired up and could see hunger in his eyes. Then in the 6th minute of the game, he got a chance, and he capitalised it with a brace. The assistant from Jao cancelled the break, the tie and the goal. Ronaldo shut the mouths of his haters.
The stadium erupts, and that single moment makes Ronald the first player to score in six different FIFA World Cups. Now it was time to pass on a statement to everyone, as in the second half Ronaldo scored another goal and did his sui celebration to tell everyone that he has not gone anywhere and he is ready for everything. After the final whistle, his haters became his fans; every hater was shut down or trying to avoid phrasing him. Ronaldo spoke to the media in confident. In simple he said, after all the endurance of the past week, the headline, the pundits, the doubts, they hit differently.
After the match, the atmosphere of the place was different; fans got what they wanted from Ronaldo, and that was a series of goals and old aggression. Before the match, there were rumours that the Portugal team had an internal conflict, but during the match, everybody could see their unity and teamwork. Portugal dominated the whole match, didn’t allow Uzbekistan to score a single goal in 90 minutes. The internet was full of Ronaldo appreciation posts, and some said the old goat debate just got heated up as Ronaldo scored two braces to announce his emergence in the FIFA World Cup.
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