here is a fascination always as legends fade, to watch how they rage against the diminution of their own powers, to see embodied in one shrugging, pouting frame the eternal human battle with mortality. Decay and decrepitude have their allure; what the romantics saw in a ruined abbey, so others will see in the dwindling figure of
His pass when clean through against Turkey to tee up Bruno Fernandes seemed uncharacteristic – until it became apparent that it made him the most prolific assist provider inhistory, and it suddenly made sense. Maybe that’s unfair; maybe in his dotage he has discovered the joy of giving. After all, he doesn’t actually have to score any more to draw great roars of approval.
The Ronaldo free-kick is one of the great set pieces of the modern game. There’s never a doubt he’s going to take it. Somebody goes and fetches the ball and hands it over. The wall steels itself. Ronaldo sniffs then puffs out his cheeks, and, as thousands of people in the stadium raise their phones to record the sacral moment, he addresses the ball like some weird amalgam of Jonny Wilkinson and one of the actors from the third season of Blackadder – and then belts it over.