MOSCOW: The referee was flashing a yellow card at him for his verbal volleys and that was going to rule him out of the next match. But Cristiano Ronaldo did not care. There were just seconds left on the clock and he knew he was going home. Portugal had run out of time against Uruguay in their Round of 16 game at Sochi. Just hours before, another of the two biggest names in world football — Lionel Messi — too had made his exit from the tournament.
In this respect, the 2018 World Cup has been a rather strange one. The last sixteens are still going on, but the three top favourites for next year’s Ballon d’Or have all gone home. Mohamed Salah was the first to go in the group stages with Egypt losing all three games. Then Messi and Ronaldo made a joint exit. Between them, names like Toni Kroos, Thomas Muller and Sadio Mane too made their way to the Sheremetyevo airport for an early vacation. Of course, there are still some of the biggest names in world football still soldiering on for their teams.
Neymar and Brazil are going strong. Luiz Suarez and Edinson Cavani lit up Sochi against Portugal. Antoine Griezmann hasn’t exactly been in the best of form, but he and France are still alive. And of last season’s Premier League stars, Harry Kane, Raheem Sterling, Kevin de Bruyne, Eden Hazard and Romelu Lukaku are very much alive and kicking. But none of these illustrious names have shone as the aforementioned trio, over the past year.
There is a case to be made that this is a somewhat unique phenomenon. In 2016, while Ronaldo made an early exit, Lionel Messi was there till the end, Argentina only losing in the final. Four years before that, Messi (who won the Ballon D’or that year) made a quarterfinal exit but the other two standout players of that season — Xavi and Andres Iniesta, who finished second and third in the race for player of the year behind Messi — won the World Cup with Spain.
In 2006, the best defender of the year and eventual Ballon d’Or winner Fabio Cannavaro lifted the Cup while the likes of Zinedine Zidane and Thierry Henry made it to the final. Ditto for 2002 when the victors, a star-studded Brazilian team, featured names like Rivaldo, Ronaldinho and Ronaldo, the latter going on to be adjudged best player of the year. Salah was perhaps not fully fit and had minimal impact on the tournament. But, while their performances were not exactly at the high standards they had set, it would be to unfair to fault Messi and Ronaldo for the woes of their teams.
Ronaldo was an early favourite to finish as the Golden Boot winner, singlehandedly dragging his team to a draw against Spain and scoring the only goal of the game against Morocco. No player in the World Cup had attempted more shots in the first two games than Messi. Other stats show just how much of a burden he had. He laid on 10 chances for his teammates over four games, of which they took only two and completed more dribbles than anyone in the tournament.
He took a whopping 2.7 shots more than any of his teammates per game and made the most key passes for Argentina. He also became the only player to record assists in four separate World Cups. It is clear that both Messi and Ronaldo were hamstrung by having to play in sub-par teams. But at the end of the day, the one stat that will go viral on social media is that the two greatest players of our generation have never scored a World Cup knockout goal. Such a shame, that!