“What is he trying to achieve?”
Without Johnny Giles and Eamon Dunphy not in the RTE studio, and with Liam Brady off punditry duty for Portugal vs. Germany, Didi Hamann took up the curmudgeon mantle.
The former Liverpool and Germany star was in cheerful form – for the most part – after watching Jogi Löw’s side beat Portugal 4-2 in their Euro 2020 group game.
However, he took exception with one piece of showboating magic from portugal captain Cristiano Ronaldo in the first half.
Not long after putting his side 1-0 up, Ronaldo produced a no-look backheel flick to a Portugal teammate to bamboozle Antonio Rudiger and keep an attack alive. To Hamman, it was nothing more than “nonsense” that would have fired up the Germans.
Di usianya yg sudah tua ronaldo masih memiliki skill yg sangat bagus #portugal #EURO2020 #ronaldo pic.twitter.com/zwB9Z5isLh
— palabutung (@rachmatt23) June 19, 2021
Speaking after the game, Hamann disagreed with fellow RTE pundit Richie Sadlier. “The German, sitting next to me,” Sadlier remarked, “was sucking the life out of the room and said there’s no place for that.” Sitting forward, Hamann declared:
“I think it’s nonsense. He flicks the ball over, pretends he is going to catch it and backheels it across, and looks away… of course it is [amazing] and we know he can do that… I think, in a way he’s belittling the opposition.”
“This is at 1-0 and I’m sitting here while you all rave about it,” he continued. “Yes, he is the best, with Messi… He looks a fool now. This is 1-0. He does look the fool.
“If you ask the German players, they’ll tell you now what they thought of it. They would have noticed that. I tell you now, all of them will say it may have given us an extra bit of whatever to change things.”
After Sadlier stepped in to defend Ronaldo’s right to showboat, especially as he kept the attack going.
“What is he trying to achieve?” Hamann cut in. “Maybe this [Germany comeback] is where it all started.”
Hamann then rowed back by stating he was not having a go at Ronaldo, the man, after doing the exact opposite for the previous few minutes.
