Heckling at Euro 2012 | I bet you think this post is about you

I don't really blame Roy Hodgson for England's rather timely exit from Euro 2012. In all fairness, the nation wasn't expecting much and England simply lived up to its capabilities. So did the French, the Poles, and pretty much everyone else (Russia and Netherlands excepted).

Roy isn't the highest on my list of managers; I'd say he's in the centre, just as the ratings start to get murky. Not for his honest performance at Euro 2012, but for a comment and incredibly stupid decision he made back in the nineties when, at the helm of the hated Internazionale, he gifted Roberto Carlos to Real Madrid claiming he "played like a woman" and went on to list a thousand tactical deficiencies.

Political correctness aside, the move was as misguided as a space mission led by a drunkard, as the ample selection of leftbacks Inter signed after Carlos' departure would prove: Gresko, Macellari, Coco are only few of the names that come to mind. Inter took ages to recover from that "mistake", long after Roy had been unceremoniously ditched by Moratti.

If there's a player nowadays who plays like a woman, that's the gelled chappie who plays for Portugal and earns the adulation of roughly 49.9% of the world. He "plays like a woman" in the sense of Prima Donna (statistical note: injured players in the FIFA Women's World Cup spend less time writhing on the floor than him).

Yes, this is a gleeful post about the world's biggest bitch.

I couldn't help applauding on my sofa as I watched Portugal get dumped out of the cup on penalties. Like England last Sunday, Portugal set up barricades but were better than the Three Lions in their constant pressure on Spain's playmaking. By time the game reached the extra time, they ran out of gas and occasionally seemed to be hanging on a thread. So here we go to the "lottery" of penalties (which is a false term, really, as penalties are won by a team effort involving skill, morale, reflexes, cold blood, and yes, stamina after 120-minute play).

Common logic dictates the best players should shoot first, but Portugal's first four shooters featured Pepe, Moutinho, Nani and Bruno Alves. Ronaldo stood there on his own, watching. Usually any player would stand with his mates and live the agony with them, not really caring about the camera angles.

Portugal lost.

And Ronaldo? The Anti-Messi? The player who is reviled for being "rich, handsome, and the best player on earth"? The player who never got suspended for his off the ball "tackles" on other defenders in the Spanish Liga? The player whose irritating girlie face stands out proudly from a thousand billboards?

He just stood there muttering "Ingiusticia, ingusticia" fully knowing the cameras were on him. That's no injustice, missus. Portugal might have contained Spain but that's just about it, in 120" there wasn't a single shot on goal to bother Casillas. Ronaldo might have been fast and troublesome, taking the occasional dive, and being the petty nuisance he is; but surely, losing on penalties after two hours of nothing isn't what I'd call unjust.

His little rant seemed more like an apologia for the ultimate act of petulance, fully knowing his attempt at self-aggrandisement - where in his morbid bedwetting dreams he would have scored the final penalty against the hated rival - cost Portugal the final.

He should have taken the penalty first, executing that duck-in-reverse-routine that sees him irritatingly widen his legs like a (I shall refrain from finding a simile here, otherwise MT's censorship board might summon me to their offices in yet another explanation). Maybe he would have missed again like he did against Bayern in the Champions League semi-final where he walked up, spat, turned, shot, and watched sheepishly as Neuer neutralised it with the ease of a machine gun tearing polystyrene.)

You will ask me why I have it in for him so much. I admit he's a splendid player with equally spectacular flaws, such as:

1. His odious self-pitying smirk whenever he misses a freekick by a nautical mile (not millimetres);
2. His incredible fixation with beating Messi, including some Mourinho-inspired vitriol against his opponent. I've never seen Messi behave like a kid who's been robbed of his lollypop, and in all fairness Messi is better. The idea of a modern Maradona vs Pele fight gets me sick instantly;
3. His incredible fixation with Messi (2). Want to piss Ronaldo off? Chant Messi, Messi just to see him lose his patience and miss chances (remember Denmark v Portugal?). I remember being heckled in almost all the five a side pitches I've played but somehow always kept my calm. Let alone football's self-styled "biggest player";
4. His nasty habit of squirming on the floor to get his opponents booked or sent off. With masters like Ferguson and Mourinho, you don't need much to pull that off;
5. His obnoxious presence in the media: whence FC Bayern are often referred to as FC Hollywood, Ronaldo embodies Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Cinecitta, and the studios where all those sordid Brazilian soap operas are created;
6. His nickname, CR7, created by a sponsor to better Ronaldo's R9
7. His long sleeves: you copied this from Beckham, didn't you?
8. His habit of being a dirty player. Watch him dive as if shot by a sniper sitting in the fifth row whenever he loses the ball, or provoke opponents with excessive showboating or worse, insults and tackles;
9. His irrelevance to the Portuguese side is equal to Messi's in the Argentine side. No matter who scores the deciding goal, set-piece or not, it's always a team effort: as is the case with Maradona in '86 or Pele in the '70s, van Basten in the nineties, and so on. So no, Diego, he doesn't deserve a statue in Lisbon unless the dogs have nowhere better to piss;

Finally, although this open to everyone's opinion, he's a bad example for future footballers. Football is about sweat, blood and passion, not brylcreem, sponsors and wags. And of course, Messi, Messi!

Wayne Flask blogs on www.wayneflask.com