Pitch invaders, lookalikes and a steward’s slide tackle: Ninety minutes in the presence of Cristiano Ronaldo

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If it had been thought that the cult of Cristiano Ronaldo was diminishing, you only had to listen to the man who is notionally supposed to be his superior. Portugal manager Roberto Martinez was asked about Bruno Fernandes’ goal in the 56th minute against Turkey, which to most people looking on would have just been a striker squaring to his teammate for an easy finish; think Brian McClair to Paul Ince in the 1994 FA Cup final. The only notable thing about it was that someone as intensely obsessed with his own scoring record as Cristiano Ronaldo had actually passed the ball, but that kind of surprise wasn’t really the emotion that Martinez was conveying. He was going for more.

“It is fantastic to have Cristiano, who is an out-and-out goalscorer who lives for the goal and then he gets in front of the goalkeeper, and he looks for the pass to Bruno Fernandes. It is a pure moment of Portuguese football, that should be shown in every academy in the world, and that means more than any goal.”

It does, but not in the bizarre manner that Martinez intended. This entire occasion at Westfalonstadion – which in any normal situation would have simply been a convincing win from a team asserting themselves as one of the best at Euro 2024 – was instead a case study in uber fame.

This is beyond football. This isn’t like the purely football-based adulation of Diego Maradona. It is really beyond the level of most of the biggest celebrities in the world. Many of us will have been to matches involving Ronaldo, of course, but there’s something about him appearing at an international tournament and a wider audience that lays bare just how odd this is. You have to be around it to really grasp it.

There were little moments that all helped illustrate the scale of his fame, and not just the pitch invaders of escalating age. From the very start, as the teams lined up, virtually every photographer on the pitch was in front of Ronaldo. Those that were not were in the press box, pointing cameras at the executive box behind, which featured Ronaldo’s girlfriend Georgina Rodriguez and the rest of the extensive camp. A burly security guard stood behind the player’s eldest son and understandably warned people not to take photos of the children.