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LUSAIL, Qatar — Cristiano Ronaldo went via the motions. There he went, wheeling away in delight, his arms aloft. Right here got here the signature celebration: the hovering leap from the bottom, the twisting of the physique, the clenching of the fists, the good roar of affirmation. The group cheered. This was the second it wished, the right shot for an Instagram story.
Like a considerable quantity of this World Cup, although, all was not fairly because it had appeared. Ronaldo had been indulging in an finally innocent — nicely, until you occurred to be Bruno Fernandes — and intensely convincing subterfuge. He might need fooled the group. He might need fooled a few of his teammates.
However he couldn’t hoodwink the chilly, robotic eye of no matter space-race expertise FIFA is using for the noble and by no means wasteful function of figuring out the rightful aim scorer at soccer matches. Ronaldo’s head had actually been close to Fernandes’s cross. It had been inside a whisker of it.
A sort studying might need it that maybe he touched the ball together with his aura. He might have simply clipped it together with his sense of vanity. He had not, although, because the replays confirmed and the watchful overlord within the sky noticed, made any contact together with his corporeal type. The aim belonged to Fernandes.
That truth, fairly clearly, didn’t match neatly into Ronaldo’s model of actuality, and if this event has taught us something, it’s you could have any model of actuality you need: If a wall that’s there can even not be there, and followers may be actual and likewise false, then why are you able to not rating a aim with the best of glances out of your halo?
Even because the groups had been leaving the sphere on Monday, Portugal’s win 2-0 win over Uruguay and its place within the spherical of 16 secured, Ronaldo was nonetheless protesting, gesturing emphatically to the a part of his face — a cheekbone, maybe, or a watch socket — h believed had grazed the ball on its means from Fernandes’s boot to the Uruguayan web.
If the exact geometry of the aim mattered to Ronaldo — and we will assume, at this stage, that these items undoubtedly does matter to Ronaldo — then it didn’t carry any bigger consequence.
Its real-world significance stretched solely to breaking the impasse in a tepid, soporific sport, a monochrome form of a night that stood in stark distinction to the vivid radiance of the day’s earlier choices between Cameroon and Serbia and Ghana and South Korea, and setting Portugal on its option to a easy victory towards a toothless, bitterly underwhelming Uruguay.
Certainly, till the contested aim, the one second of observe at Lusail had come when a protester — carrying a rainbow flag, sporting a T-shirt bearing the slogans “Save Ukraine” and “Respect for Iranian girls” and with the Ukrainian trident tattooed on his arm — had damaged onto the sphere, the primary occasion at this event of all the problems which have swirled round it intruding on the game itself.
Everybody did no matter they may to be sure that not one of the messages seeped into the general public’s consciousness. In any case, the FIFA World Cup, opened at a grand ceremony by which the emir of Qatar sat subsequent to the crown prince of Saudi Arabia and which has the ability, in response to the group’s president, to convey peace between South and North Korea, is a resolutely nonpolitical occasion.
A steward tackled the protester. The referee shortly bundled away the rainbow flag. The tv cameras shortly reduce to one thing, the rest — although not fairly shortly sufficient to keep away from choosing up the colours of the flag — hoping that no one had observed actual life inserting itself into Qatar’s fastidiously curated fantasy. That first aim adopted a few minutes later. FIFA might nicely have celebrated as wildly as Ronaldo.
Uruguay threatened solely fleetingly to haul Portugal again. There was an opportunity for Maxi Gómez, who rattled the publish, and one other for Luis Suárez, who creaked his rusting physique into place to ship a snapshot into the side-netting, however the flame of resistance shortly sputtered out. By the point Fernandes added a second aim, coolly changing a penalty awarded for a draconian handball name towards José María Gímenez, Uruguay had all however misplaced hope.
There’s a unhappiness in that. This Uruguayan workforce has been a reassuringly unchanging presence within the final three World Cups: Diego Godín marshaling the protection, Suárez and Edinson Cavani main the road, a snapping, snarling opponent for all who crossed its path. It has made a semifinal, a quarterfinal and the final 16 within the course of, no imply feat for a nation of three million folks.
Success at a fourth event, although, has clearly been a step too far. The nation’s outdated guard had fallen into disrepair and its new technology, led by the superb Federico Valverde and the unorthodox, uncategorizable Darwin Nuñez, just isn’t but prepared. It has the air of a workforce caught between eras, not fairly able to say goodbye to the previous however not capable of wholeheartedly embrace the long run.
The identical cost could possibly be leveled at Portugal, after all: in any case, it began this sport with Pepe, 39, on the coronary heart of its protection and Ronaldo, a few years youthful and raging towards the dying of the sunshine, main its line.
The distinction, maybe, is within the energy of the supporting forged. Ronaldo has at his disposal not simply Fernandes, however Bernardo Silva, João Félix, João Cancelo and Raphael Guerreiro, depth that can make Portugal a substantial menace to anybody as soon as the knockout rounds begin.
Ronaldo stays the star attraction, after all, the one untouchable, however Portugal is not reliant on him, not in the best way that it as soon as was. Ronaldo might need thought he had determined this sport. It’s much more encouraging, from a Portuguese standpoint, to know that he didn’t, because it seems, contact the ball.
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