Preening star Ronaldo still can’t win with grace

For a guy whose skills you can only admire, doesn’t Cristiano Ronaldo make himself so hard to like?

Tue, 27 May, 2014 - 01:00

Kieran Shannon is an award-winning sportswriter renowned for big interviews, insightful columns and an unrelenting focus on high‑performance sport.

Of course, it’s hardly the first time someone from Portugal has tried to make a Champions League final all about themselves. In 2004, Jose Mourinho walked right off the winners’ podium and out of his club to send flirtatious messages on television that very same night about an imminent rendezvous with Mr Abramovich. Six years later, he couldn’t let the story be about Inter Milan winning the biggest prize in Europe; instead he had to make it about him joining the biggest club in Europe, one Real Madrid.

When it comes to narcissism, a former player and compatriot of Mourinho’s is his equal. Leave aside the 2009 Champions League final when some Manchester United players afterwards bemoaned how Ronaldo had again made it all about himself; at least that night against Barcelona he had demanded the ball, taken multiple shots, at least in trying too hard, he had tried hard.