CHENNAI : It's that now iconic pose you have likely seen more times than you have wanted to. Cristiano Ronaldo sizing up a free-kick in the vicinity of the penalty box. On more than one occasion in the pre-quarterfinals against Slovenia on Monday, the Portugal captain struck a similar pose. A few metres away from the dead ball, the 39-year-old stood and scanned the vast green grass in front of him, like a predator.
Unfortunately for him, that's when the fun stopped. He struck the ball sweetly enough but it didn't trouble the keeper, Jan Oblak. You could even say only the pose is iconic, everything that follows isn't. After the end of the Slovenia game, one of the sport's greatest goalscorers had taken 60 direct free-kicks at all major senior international competitions. He had converted just one. Of course, this isn't to talk about Ronaldo's competence when standing over a dead-ball.
What's different about this iteration of Ronaldo and some of the previous ones with the national team is that he is appearing to hinder Portugal's chances of gold at this Championship. The ironic thing about the free-kick is this; he would have had far greater chances of beating Oblak had Bruno Fernandes or Bernardo Silva delivered a cross.
One of the things the forward still has the ability to out-jump his marker before heading the ball goalward. But are Fernandes and Silva empowered enough to take the ball off him in those situations (what compounded the issue was it was from an almost impossible angle; even with a joystick, you would have struggled to score).
Fernandes would have also been a viable alternative to take a penalty when Portugal got one deep into the first-half of extra time. Ronaldo pulled rank but saw his penalty saved, a sensational Oblak save. If the save was extraordinary, what followed was surreal. In the brief stoppage between the two blocks of 15 minutes of extra time, Ronaldo wept. Hang on, didn't he realise there was a match to be won. Missing a penalty isn't ideal, yes, but they still had a chance to win. The match was still level.
Portugal coach, Roberto Martinez, opted to keep Ronaldo on. The last 15 minutes predictably passed him by before the referee signalled for a shoot-out. Fair-play to him as he opened the scoring in the shoot-out but the Iberians advanced to the quarterfinals despite Ronaldo's ineffectiveness under the Frankfurt lights.
Their hero of the night was Diego Costa who kept the 2016 champions in the tie with a tight save deep into the second half of extra time before saving three back-to-back penalties in the shoot-out.
"At first I was sad, now I'm overjoyed," Ronaldo told broadcasters after the last 16 clash. "This is football. This is what football gives you. You cannot explain this. It goes from eight to 80. We had the chance to go ahead. I failed... I need to see it again, I don't know if I hit it right or not."
There were other parts of the match — and the majority of Ronaldo's Championship too — where you were left with that thought. Did he hit it right? What's he doing?... why's he starting?
This version of Ronaldo doesn't offer the attack a lot. He doesn't press, he doesn't take part in the build up phase, isn't willing to drop into the channels and isn't mobile enough. What he's rather good at is taking shots (on 19 after the four games, leading this metric by a distance). In short, he possesses a lot of main character energy even if he's a fading force now.
The irony in all of this is Ronaldo can still be a good impact substitute. He can come off the bench, occupy defenders and give the team another plan of attack if Plan A isn't working. But there's nothing in his career to suggest he will settle for a bit-part role. For example: even as some of the main players from the other teams had a night off during their teams' final group games after qualification was sealed, the 39-year-old started. The alternative would have been to give Goncalo Ramos (he has a World Cup hat-trick in a knockout game) a start to give him enough minutes before the ties that really matter.
If Martinez desires, Ramos will take Ronaldo's place for a crunch last-eight clash against France on Friday night. But do not hold your breath. The latter will start just because of the name on the back of his jersey.
It needn't be like this.
Monday's result: Portugal 0-0 Slovenia aet (Portugal won 3-0 on penalty shoot-out)