Cristiano Ronaldo might have achieved the impossible. He might have delivered the landslide of goals it needed to fill a void in goal difference as deep as the Grand Canyon and thereby send the USA plunging from that famous precipice of theirs.
If half the great man’s thunderous shots and leaping headers had crossed the line then Portugal would have done so too.
Inexplicably, it was not to be.
At the very least the supreme footballer of the year should have gone out of Brazil 2014 — and perhaps departed the World Cup forever — with a hat-trick.
No reason to celebrate: Ronaldo walks back after scoring the winner
Net result: The view behid the goal as Ronaldo scores the second goal against Ghana
MATCH FACTS
Portugal (4-3-3): Beto 7, Pereira 6, Pepe 6.5, Alves 5.5, Veloso 5.5, Moutinho 6.5, William 6, Amorim 6, Nani 6, Eder 7, Ronaldo 9.5
Coach: Paulo Bento 6.6
Goals: Boye 30 og,Ronaldo 80.
Booked: Joao Moutinho.
Ghana (4-2-2-2): Dauda 6.5, Afful 6.5, Boye 5, Mensah 6, Asamoah 6, Rabiu 6, Badu 6, Atsu 7, A Ayew 6, Waris 7, Gyan 7.5
Booked: Afful,Waris,Jordan Ayew.
Goals: Gyan 57.
Att: 67,540
Coach: Akwasi Appiah 5
Referee: Nawaf Shukralla (Bahrain) 6
Yet the fates decreed he should be given only one goal. It was a trifle in return for the command performance he gave.
It was the winner, against a Ghana team which cast out its own demons to put on a thrilling show of their own. But it was not the miracle this genius of a ball conjurer deserved.
Run after run and shot after shot ended in seemingly impossible frustration. When one last brilliant, surging effort was somehow denied he just sat there, at first beating his fists on the turf in despair, then gazing around him disbelief.
If it is some small consolation, Ronaldo will be forever remembered for what he almost achieved on this sunlit afternoon, not for his failure to match Lionel Messi and now Neymar in World Cup goalscoring.
That Ronaldo, 29, could play with such desire despite carrying into this match his belief that Portugal were not good enough to challenge for the game’s greatest prize is all the more remarkable.
Kudos, also, to Ghana. They came into this match out of meltdown in their dressing room and made a splendid fight of it.
It all came to a thrilling climax but there had been as much or more turmoil going on before it started.
Tumble: Ronaldo goes down under the challenge of Ghana defender John Boye
Ronaldo packing in readiness for going home as soon as the game was over. Ghana beating him to it by sending two of their players packing before the kick-off.
The Africans flying in three million bucks in readies to stop the rest of their team packing up before they even found out they had not scraped through to the last 16.
Never mind that both Portugal and Ghana still had a chance of making it to the knockout phase at kick-off. An outside chance, maybe, but surely one still worth fighting for no matter what was going on over in Recife.
At least Sulley Muntari thought so. The AC Milan midfielder was so upset with the way things were going that he physically assaulted a Ghanaian executive committee man during a team meeting.
Kevin-Prince Boateng, once of Tottenham and Portsmouth and now with Schalke, did not go quite that far but he did make his feelings known as to why Ghana were bottom of this group with a ‘vulgar verbal assault’ on manager James Kwesi Appiah.
The pair were put on the first plane out of here. But don’t feel sorry for those two. Save your pity for the tens of thousands of Ghana fans who had travelled in the hope of seeing Africa’s day at the World Cup finally arrive.
In control: Ronaldo holds off Asamoah Gyan (left) and Mohammed Rabiu of Ghana
Ronaldo, for his part, had written off Portugal’s prospects, admitting: ‘We were never going to win the World Cup with a team as average as this.’ How close he came to proving himself wrong.
Ronaldo came close to opening the scoring in the fifth minute when no one else in this skyscraper stadium sensed a whiff of a chance. From way out on the right he floated a cross beyond and behind Fatua Dauda, who could only turn and watch the ball rebound from his crossbar.
Six minutes later Ghana’s goalkeeper dived to his left to turn aside a trademark Ronaldo free-kick. Seven minutes after that the new World Footballer of the Year rose for a powerful header which Dauda palmed away.
So it was to go on … and on.
Down and out: Portugal captain Cristiano Ronaldo
Ghana, with their nation’s pride to save, were having their moments, too. By a poignant irony, a Ghanaian defender scored for Portugal the goal for which, after half an hour, Ronaldo was still urgently striving. Miguel Veloso crossed on the run from the left and John Boye’s panicky swing contrived to provide a finishing touch of which Ronaldo would have been proud. The ball looped upwards off his knee at an implausible angle to ricochet gently into the net off both bar and post.
On the stroke of half-time we were almost bore witness to history. The same Ghanaian defender took a similar wild swing, only this time the ball sheered just over the bar.
Maybe it would be safer to leave this John Boye in Walton’s Mountain. No sooner had Thomas Muller put Germany ahead in Recife than the glimmer of hope that Portugal might overturn the USA’s goal difference advantage evaporated with a Ghana equaliser.
Clinical: Ghana's Asamoah Gyan, left, scores the equaliser against Portugal
Clinical: Ghana's Asamoah Gyan, left, scores the equaliser against Portugal
Asamoah Gyan rose to meet Kwadwo Asamoah’s cross with an unstoppable header.
Now it was Ghana who had closed within striking distance of the Americans. Their athletic pace kept carrying them deep into the Portuguese penalty area but the finishing touch eluded them.
That dream finally died at the feet of Ronaldo — who else?
After slamming his shot low into the corner from Dauda’s weak palming down of the ball, Ronaldo spurned celebration.
He just turned away, knowing that his race was run.
Support: Portugal's defender Pepe helps up Ronaldo
Benjamin Ekpenyong
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