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Ronaldo may be a narcissist, but he is worth the hassle

In the canon of Cristiano Ronaldo's extravagant boasts, his claim this week that he could keep playing until the age of 41 was especially eye-catching.

As one imagines he has little desire to finish washed up with a loan spell at Recreativo de Huelva or a soulless last payday in the Chinese heartland, the natural deduction is that he seeks eight more years at a level that few, if any, have ever sustained into a fifth decade. Gordon Strachan was an extreme rarity as an outfield player who extended a Premier League career beyond his 40th birthday, ascribing such stamina to a diet of seaweed and bananas.

Ageless wonder: Cristiano Ronaldo doesn't look like slowing down any time soon.

Photo: AP

Ronaldo takes his own nutrition to the next level, sticking scrupulously to a regime of braised cod, whole grains and egg whites, while sculpting a physique that would make Popeye blanch. His incentives are self-evident: in Kiev tomorrow night, he stands poised to become the first player ever to score in four Champions League finals.

Plus, he can burnish his all-important credentials vis-à-vis Lionel Messi, sealing European Cup title No 5 against the Argentine's three. For all that he purports to prize collective above individual glory this weekend, there is every chance he has set aside a wing of his Madeira museum ready to puff up his latest feats.

He is, of course, an incorrigible popinjay. Preparing to board Real Madrid's flight to Ukraine, he made that telltale third-person lapse, declaring: "The fans are behind Cristiano." When Zinedine Zidane had the temerity to substitute him during a draw with Levante last season, he pulled a face that could have curdled milk.

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All this, even before we are treated to the almost annual summer tradition of his agitating to leave the Bernabeu, while fluttering eyelashes at his beloved Manchester United.

Although he is older than Messi by three years, and Neymar by seven, the fact he trails both in the pay league by a large margin is the source of much chagrin.

For all these bagatelles, the truth about Ronaldo is that the hassle is a fair price to pay. He is, as Zidane puts it, "the best of his generation by a long way" – even if the man himself might deem that faint praise, modestly proclaiming after a fifth Ballon d'Or to be "the best in history".

But the numbers do not lie: Ronaldo's extraordinary strike-rate at Real, with 450 goals in 437 games, makes even a club icon like Raul, with 323 in 741, seem like a laggard. When Real won the title last year, his goals alone were worth 14 points to the champions: the difference, in other words, between first and third.

Where the form of Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema waxes and wanes, Ronaldo remains, fittingly for a man who talks of having a biological age of 23, somehow imperishable. Even in a campaign where he fell short of his best in La Liga and appeared to have lost a yard of pace, he still amassed 44 goals in all competitions, the same as Mohamed Salah.

Such is his pedigree on the grandest stage, he has been the top scorer in the Champions League for six years in succession. His bicycle-kick finish against Juventus last month was described by LeBron James, no less, as "just plain nasty".

Comparisons across sports are usually invidious, but the symmetries between Ronaldo and James, vying with Michael Jordan to be acclaimed as basketball's greatest player, are myriad. Both have a playing style that is the gold standard in precision and physical strength, and both elevate their teams beyond the sum of their parts. For the past year, James' Cleveland Cavaliers have been the definition of a one-man team.

Their flaws were so conspicuous in attack and defence, it was faintly miraculous they even made the play-offs. Ever since, James has proved other-worldly: he contrived a buzzer-beating winner in seeing off the Indiana Pacers, he averaged 34 points a game in a 4-0 sweep of the Toronto Raptors, and tonight he has the chance to level a series against the Boston Celtics and take this ragtag collective to a fourth straight finals.

By the same token, Ronaldo's 12 goals in Europe this season go a long way to explaining the curious duality of this Real team, only third in La Liga, but in a fourth Champions League final in five years. Football does not afford the same latitude as basketball for a superstar to keep stealing the show night after night, but Ronaldo achieves a level of pre-eminence to make him a worthy rival to James, a figure he has made no secret of admiring.

Proven winner: Ronaldo kisses the European Championship trophy.

Photo: AP

"Legends like LeBron don't get to their perfect level by accident," he once said. "Many factors coincide. To be at the top and stay there, you have to have more talent than the others."

For years, the pair have been on uncannily parallel paths. Each seemed to have reached his apogee at 31, an age when Ronaldo won the European Championship with Portugal and James at last brought an NBA title to his hometown of Cleveland after the city's decades of sporting drought.

It is true that both, when the mood takes them, can be oceangoing egotists whose tantrums require the most delicate indulgence. But both, ultimately, prove by their actions that they are always worth the aggravation.

The Telegraph, London

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