Internet Desk: Antoine Griezmann believes he will lose out to Cristiano Ronaldo for this year’s Ballon d’Or award as a result of France being beaten 1-0 by Portugal in the Euro 2016 final.
Griezmann, 25, finished with the Golden Boot as the tournament’s top scorer. However, the French striker failed to add to his six goals in the hosts’ extra-time defeat at the Stade de France on Sunday. While Ronaldo won the silver boot with three goals to his tally showed his greatness by gifting his silver boot to Portugal’s Nani who also scored three gials with one assist too. Ronaldo said, ” Nani fully deserves this award as he had too scored three goals and one assist too.”
The Atletico Madrid forward saw a first-half header wonderfully saved by Portugal goalkeeper Rui Patricio, before heading a much easier chance over the bar later in the game.
The final had been billed in some quarters as a battle between Griezmann and Real Madrid star Ronaldo, 31, with the winner expected to claim the Ballon d’Or award as the world’s best player.
But Griezmann said that the prospect of winning the individual award was not something he had thought about prior to Sunday’s game.
Ronaldo who limped off the pitch with a knee injury could not play the whole match but played an integral part after the match was stretched to extra time. Ronaldo came out of the dressing room with the inhury and kept on inspiring his team from the sidelines.
His Portugal team finally broke through, winning their first ever major tournament. And they did it with Ronaldo on the bench after the superstar had to come off with a nasty knee injury in the 25th minute.
Despite that, Eder gave Ronaldo credit on his game-winning goal.
The convenient narrative on Ronaldo is that he’s selfish and out to score his goals and hog the spotlight. But that has never been very fair to him and he’s been the opposite at the Euros, instead being every bit the phenomenal leader that one would expect from the team’s captain.
After Ronaldo came out of the match, he went straight down the tunnel and had his knee examined. After that, he came back out to the bench and was seen enouraging his teammates, instructing them and bringing players together for talks. When Eder scored, he hobbled his way to the celebration and was visibly crying.
It’s not as if Ronaldo simply took on the role of the leader in the final either. When Portugal went to penalty kicks against Poland in the quarterfinals, Ronaldo essentially picked Moutinho to take a spot kick himself and then convinced Moutinho that he would make it, which Moutinho did.
Ronaldo would have obviously preferred to have been on the pitch for the entirety of the final. Injury have prevented that, but Ronaldo still made his presence felt as a leader. He was the team’s captain in every way all tournament long and again with the title on the line, doing everything he could to help his country.
When he was handed the trophy to lift for the first time in Portugal history, nobody deserved to do it more, with the armband on, a smile on his face and his entire team beside him, as had been the case all Euros long.