Cristiano Ronaldo refused to be drawn into a conversation about long-time rival Lionel Messi.
The Portugal forward shrugged off days of widespread criticism by scoring twice in his nation’s 5-0 group win over Uzbekistan to open his goal account in North America.
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While talk about the Golden Boot race dominated football fan chats, Ronaldo’s name was not among the discussion as Messi, Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland battle for the top scorer award.
However, in finding the back of the net, 41-year-old Ronaldo became the first ever player to score at six World Cups to make his own headlines 24 hours after, Messi made history of his own when he became the World Cup’s all-time leading goalscorer.
And Ronaldo, who is the greatest goal scorer of all time, was not in the mood to entertain any question about Messi vs himself, so when one reporter began his question by mentioning his name, he turned his back and fielded another question.
Messi has scored five goals in his first two games, Mbappe and Haaland have scored four times, while Harry Kane and Vincius Junior have two apiece.
But now Ronaldo is off the mark and he gave his detractors a timely reminder of what he can still produce on the big stage.
What did Ronaldo say to his critics?
“We’re getting better. That’s how life is. There are ups and downs in life and in matches and the aim is always to get better.
“It’s been a hard week, a very difficult week. Public opinion has been very hard on us, on all the players and especially on me and on the manager.
“But it doesn’t matter because as you can guess I’ve been in the profession for 23 years and it’s always when things are going well, ‘Cristiano is good’, and when things are going badly, it’s ‘he’s retired, he’s old.’ It’s always like this. But me and my teammates responded well and it’s what we wanted.
“We’re in a good position, we played well, we played attacking football and it’s difficult to stop Portugal when we’re like this, and it came together for us to score five goals.
“Honestly I’m very happy and now it’s time to recover and get ready for the next one.”
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The win puts Roberto Martinez’s side provisionally top of Group K but were leapfrogged by Colombia when they beat DR Congo.
And with morale at a high, Martinez heaped praise on his side for blocking out the noise of the past week.
“In the first game, up to the first goal we showed good intensity, good discipline in terms of our positioning, but after scoring we lost our discipline,” the Spaniard said.
“Today, we started very well, but then we kept our positions, stuck to our plan, and the match was completely different.
“Ronaldo’s movements are the best you can get from a centre-forward in the area and today the ball went in, but he continued to generate chances until the end of the game.
“It was the answer from the locker room. Sometimes you need games like our first one so you can grow.
“We saw a team with the same attitude and effort, with maturity that enabled them to put the emotion of the first game behind them. I’m happy for them because they deserve this result.”
eSPORTY Verdict
Andy Brassell, eSPORTY’s European football expert, was in Houston to see Ronaldo score his first goals of the World Cup.
“He really needed that. Not because of any ‘who’s better, who’s best between him and Leo Messi’.
“No one should be having that conversation. No one should have been having that conversation since 2022 or even before 2022 because we know who the better all-round player is.
“But what Ronaldo underlined today is that he remains a very, very potent penalty box player. If you provide him with the chances, he’ll invariably take them.
“That gives Portugal half a chance during this World Cup. It’s his first goals in open play, in fact, in a World Cup since 2018 in Russia. Quite unbelievable really.
“It’s what Portugal needed, it’s what Ronaldo needed and it’s what the crowd needed because so many fans came here to see Cristiano Ronaldo in this World Cup, which particularly here in the USA is about a cult of personality.
“Lots of cheering and all that sort of stuff everywhere on the concourse, in the stands. A lot of fans going home very happy today.”
Nike will honour Ronaldo
For being the first player to score in six consecutive World Cups, Nike is releasing a special edition CR7 Mercurial Superfly boot, with a gold finish.
Ronaldo has worn the Mercurial boot in 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018, 2022 and in 2026.
It’s a limited edition boot and will be available on 24 June, but will set fans back £240.
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