Cristiano Ronaldo would appreciate it if Real Madrid fans stop jeering him while he carries the team on his back
A small request from the man giving Madridistas something to cheer
Cristiano Ronaldo scored a hat trick (albeit with two goals scored from an offside position) in the second leg of Real Madrid’s Champions League quarterfinal against Bayern Munich to help his side advance and give him a total of five goals over the two legs and a record 100 Champions League goals over his career. And yet, some Real Madrid supporters still whistled him.
Everyone gets whistled in Spain, and by Real Madrid fans in particular. It was also just a small segment of the crowd at the Bernabeu that jeered their team’s hero, but it was enough to get Cristiano’s attention and prompted him to speak out after the match.
From Reuters:
“I’m not asking them to name streets after me, the only thing I ask is that they don’t boo me here,” Ronaldo told Spanish TV station Antena 3.
“I want them to stop booing me because I always give my best and even when I don’t score I try to help Real Madrid.”
It’s kind of amazing that Cristiano would pay any mind to this amidst such a successful evening. After all, most people in the stadium were loudly supporting him and in the dressing room it was nothing but love specifically for him.
⚽ #RMUCL Go behind-the-scenes and watch the team celebrate @Cristiano's hat-trick Bayern! #HalaMadrid https://t.co/qwnqF9u9Lt
Sid Lowe attempts to explain the whistles and why they might burrow under the skin of Cristiano Ronaldo, football’s ultimate perfectionist. From the Guardian:
Many of Madrid’s fans are entitled and eternally unsatisfied, always wanting more. Especially from Ronaldo: he has set the bar so ludicrously high for so long it is easy to fall short. His “rubbish” is everyone else’s best game ever, their best season, their dream night. Madrid fans want more from his team than they have had: this is his eighth season; they have won one league title — although two Champions Leagues in three years takes some beating and they are on course for another. Somewhere beneath the surface, perhaps that becomes an implicit accusation aimed at him.
But why express this dissatisfaction on the night that Cristiano carried the club past one of the best teams in the world? Finding a rational answer to a question only made significant by Cristiano’s own open interest in it may be impossible. So that leaves us to make some up.
Maybe Gerard Pique bought a bunch of tickets for the match and hired people to jeer Cristiano regardless of what he did.
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Maybe the whistlers had recently passed through Cristiano Ronaldo Airport and were unhappy with the dining options on the premises.
Maybe they all had money on Real winning 5–3 on aggregate instead of 6–3.
Maybe they think that whistling Cristiano will motivate him to play even better.
Or maybe they’re Adidas employees (Real Madrid’s kit partner) proving their brand loyalty by targeting Nike’s biggest star.
Who knows. But, in all honesty, if Cristiano did have a choice between getting whistled and having Madrid streets named after him, he’d happily take the streets.
