A video circulated on social media following the Carabao Cup final.Some Liverpool supporters along the steps leading up to the Wembley Royal Box filmed the beaten Chelsea players as they went to collect their runners-up medals and directed a series of witless comments at them.
They screamed at ‘the snake’ Raheem Sterling, who had left the club approximately a decade ago. They also gently inquired about Moises Caicedo’s mother, who appeared to play a role in his choice to transfer to Stamford Bridge rather than Anfield this summer. None of the players involved even seemed to raise an eyebrow in response, which was pretty amazing when under the circumstances and with family members having been brought into it all, you would understand if they went full Cantona.
In an interview Eric Cantona stated that:
“As a footballer, you must create some sort of deflector shield, an impenetrable bubble around your head, so that you don’t hear such things, or if you do, they simply sink into some dead place in your brain, never registering with your consciousness. There is no benefit to reacting: you seem petty, and in the best tradition of a parent instructing their child not to fight the bullies, you give them more satisfaction than they deserve.”
This is a roundabout way of getting at Cristiano Ronaldo, who did react to audience taunting and was punished accordingly.
The Saudi Pro League has issued Ronaldo a one-game ban and fined him 30,000 Saudi riyals (£6,332; $8,000) in penalties and costs for making a ‘obscene gesture’ at supporters during his Al Nassr team’s recent 3-2 win over Al Shabab. This appeared to be in response to shouts of ‘Messi, Messi’ from the supporters, something he has endured throughout his career. Ronaldo clutched his ears, half-squatted, and made a strange hand gesture near his crotch. If you were entirely innocent, it may appear like he was polishing a tabletop.
Following this, several thoughts occurred. One difference is that, unlike Sterling and Caicedo, Ronaldo, one of the world’s most renowned men who is supposedly used to being screamed at by a faceless audience, reacts quickly. He and Messi have been engaged in this type of terminally tedious death struggle for approximately 15 years, with the two continuously put against and contrasted to one another. You can thus understand why it will have been quite tiring, to say the least, particularly since they haven’t really played in the same league as each other since 2018 and haven’t been on the same pitch in a competitive game together since 2020.
Neither now plays in Europe, and their greatest notable successes are probably definitely in the past. The Messi-Ronaldo rivalry is no longer relevant, at least for the rest of the globe. But evidently, it is yet to Ronaldo, a small insecurity worm that has burrowed into his psyche and is now entrenched. Why else would he respond to the mere mention of Messi’s name?
