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Football

27th Jun 2016

The sound reason that Cristiano Ronaldo chose not to celebrate at the final whistle of Portugal victory

A good friend

Darragh Murphy

Cristiano Ronaldo gets a bad rap.

Sure, he can throw the odd temper tantrum on the pitch. Sure, he often doesn’t pass it to teammates in better positions. And of course he can be a bit spiky with the media if he’s not on the winning side.

But all of those tendencies stem from an insatiable thirst to succeed and perform to the best of his abilities.

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But by all accounts, Ronaldo is an absolute gem off the pitch.

He gives a lot of money to charity and is a terrific father and, apparently, he puts his friends’ well being before his own desire to celebrate.

After progressing to the quarter-finals of Euro 2016 with an extra time win over Croatia on Saturday.

And while Ronaldo celebrated Ricardo Quaresma’s late winner, the Real Madrid star didn’t join his teammates’ celebrations after the final whistle?

Why? Because Ronaldo was concerned about Luka Modric, whose side had just been eliminated.

“Of course, I am happy that we beat Croatia,” Ronaldo said, via Anadolu Agency. “However, I could not celebrate on the field because my brother Luka Modric was crying.

“My duty to comfort a brother always comes first.”

Sound man.

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