Cristiano Ronaldo picked up a Spanish League champions medal last year. Last year, he also became the first man to find the net against every La Liga team in a single season and score 40 or more in two consecutive campaigns.
On the face of it, the Portuguese, who moved to Real Madrid from Manchester United for a record-breaking US$128 million in 2009 and is one of soccer’s highest-paid players, has a strong claim to be the world’s best.
However, once again “CR7” has had to play second fiddle to Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi, whose mesmerizing skills on Monday made him the first man to win four Ballons d’Or titles.
Photo: AFP
While the little Argentine goes on rewriting the record books after a monumental, and unprecedented, 91 goals in a calendar year, Ronaldo could be forgiven for feeling hard done by. Were it not for Messi’s brilliance, Ronaldo — who was world soccer player of the year before his rival’s winning streak began — could easily have five FIFA crowns to his name.
Instead, the 27-year-old from Madeira awoke on Tuesday to a blizzard of praise for his Barca counterpart — and the realization that he is now 4-1 down in their personal duel.
Ronaldo was happy to play down the outcome in Zurich, insisting that he did not feel overshadowed and there was no ill-feeling between him and Messi.
“I am calm about it — it’s not a matter of life and death. Life goes on. I don’t feel frustrated,” he added.
However, so too does a Liga contest that may almost be over for Real this season, as they trail a Messi-inspired Barcelona side by 16 points, with the Catalan giants having won 17 out of 18 games to date.
Ronaldo, though, will soon have the perfect chance to show off his game-changing skills when Real meet his old side Manchester United in the Champions League as he looks to add a second European title to the one he won with United five seasons ago.
Messi won one at Ronaldo’s expense in 2009 and another in 2011 as Barca overcame United on both occasions, though he did not feature in the 2006 win over Arsenal.
Regarding their respective Ballon d’Or tallies, Ronaldo says he and Messi have no problems with each other.
“There is no rivalry as to who wins more. Of course we are here to win, but there’s no rivalry,” he said on Tuesday, though before the Zurich denouement he had said that he would vote for himself if it were possible.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier