We can only speculate on when Vogue, the monthly lifestyle magazine, sat down with Cristiano Ronaldo for the special interview published last Sunday.
Unlike the stepovers he famously unleashed in the early stages of his career against helpless defenders, Ronaldo, 41, decided to take a clear and direct shot on target when asked by Vogue how long he would continue to play football.
“This is probably my last year of football, and I want to leave a spectacular legacy,” the Al Nassr striker responded.
Ronaldo’s candid take on his football future now feels eerie, given its close proximity to his great rival Lionel Messi’s admission a few days earlier that the Argentine superstar was unsure how long he could continue playing following the death of his father, Jorge.
Two of the greatest players of all time, whose rivalry redefined football, have admitted to pondering their futures in the sport within a space of four days.
It certainly wasn’t designed that way — the timing could not have been planned.
Perhaps an interview for a monthly publication was planned and executed at least a month before the special story appeared last Sunday.
The Vogue feature was published just four days after Messi, 39, raised questions over his own future when he paid a moving tribute to his father on social media.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do without you, I don’t know how to go on,” the Inter Miami star wrote.
“I just played soccer and now I have a lot of doubts that I’ll keep doing it for a long time more. You were by my side from the beginning, so close to the end. Why didn’t you hold on a little longer and we could have finished together?”
The Ronaldo-Messi story will continue to fascinate fans and the media long after the two icons ride into the sunset.
Their roads to greatness were remarkably similar, yet profoundly different.
Born into a family battling chronic financial hardship in Madeira, Portugal, Ronaldo needed to escape his alcoholic father, José Dinis Aveiro, who went into depression after fighting in wars with the Portuguese army in Africa.
His incredible talent took him to Sporting CP’s academy in Lisbon. But Ronaldo was often hungry at night. Along with a few teammates, he would sneak out of the hostel to ask for leftover burgers at a nearby McDonald’s.
His was a battle against the odds. From making a breakthrough in the Portuguese league to overcoming the pain of losing his father at 20 and conquering every major league in Europe with machine-like precision and a truckload of goals, Ronaldo is the product of his unflinching spirit.
Messi, on the other hand, needed his father to be there every step of his journey.
From the time he was diagnosed with growth hormone deficiency in Argentina, where no major club came forward to help bear the cost of the expensive treatment, to travelling across the Atlantic to try his luck at FC Barcelona’s youth academy, it was his father who was his biggest pillar of strength.
Messi scored five goals in his trial game at FC Barcelona, leaving every coach at the Spanish club in awe of his talent.
But still, there was no progress on the promise made to his father about signing the young boy.
Jorge eventually had to play his last cards by threatening to take his son for trials at other big clubs in Spain.
That is when Carles Rexach, the then sporting director at Barcelona, wrote an agreement on a paper napkin, promising to sign the youngster and take full responsibility for his treatment.
Without the treatment, Messi would not have grown tall enough to become a professional footballer.
Now, he is among the greatest giants the game has ever seen, having been pushed to the limit every weekend by the insatiable Ronaldo as the two superstars broke each other’s records, turning El Clasico between Real Madrid and Barcelona into the greatest sporting spectacle on earth.
Football will continue to produce iconic footballers — just as Diego Maradona emerged after Pelé.
But will the beautiful game see two superstars going at full throttle at the same time ever again?
It is for this reason that the timing of their announcements seems eerie.
Was it written in the stars?
It’s an intriguing question for those who have witnessed how they pushed each other to break every barrier and chase immortality.
Now both of them are planning a life without football, leaving millions staring at the harshest truth in life — no one beats time.
Source: Khaleej Times