Tactically, I want to talk about the warm-up. Cristiano Ronaldo, 41, warmed up for a long time against Norway and never came on. Then he left the Portugal camp before the Denmark game. On Tuesday he published a long statement.
In it, a coach’s sentence: Jorge Jesus had asked him whether he felt able to play 30 minutes. He said yes. And then nothing. At my place, that’s called a Tuesday. I ask someone if he can last half an hour, he says yes, and by the 70th minute I have to bring on the one who has to leave to pick up the kids. Five substitutions, two of them logistical.
The 41-year-old warming up, I know him. Mine is younger, but he jogs round pitch 2 with the same dignity, uphill along one side.
What gets me is the aftermath. A video call with the national coach, the adviser Tiago Craveiro and Simão Coutinho, Al-Nassr’s sporting director. A document of eight points that Jesus was to read out at a press conference. Among them: admit a mistake over the warm-up without a substitution in Oslo. Ronaldo insists no note asked the coach for an apology.
My dressing room doesn’t need a video call: it has the club delegate. Eight points, I got my folder out, wrote three in biro, and settled on “let’s redo the block”.
Silly question, but if you warm up and don’t play, what are you warming up for?
Ronaldo also admits he did not greet the fans after the game in Norway. He apologises for it, to them, to his teammates and to the Portuguese people, and says he should not have left. Jorge Jesus had publicly stood by his choices and left the door open. Ronaldo says he is available and ready to accept a sanction.
As for me, I’ve stuck a note in my folder: ask for the 30 minutes after the match, not before.
It’s true, we checked: The Guardian.
