At club level, the Portuguese has been a magnificent player over the past decade; his lethal finishing and astute assists making a key contribution to title and Champions League winning sides at Real Madrid and before that Manchester United. But when it comes to the big international tournaments Ronaldo has, like other celebrated contemporaries Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Wayne Rooney (although he hasn't belonged in this exalted company for at least five years) and Lionel Messi, all too often failed to show up.
For those people who enjoyed seeing Ronaldo suffer, here's one of the Youtube links where you can relive his penalty miss. (It's worth playing just for the dire musical score.)
www.youtube.com/embed/ntHqPz71PxU315
A lazy parallel can be drawn (these are tenuous links after all) between the disappointing performance of football's current crop of superstars at major international tournaments and the CEOs that arrive to great fanfare and ultimately fail to deliver. Take Marc Bolland's stint at Marks & Spencer (MKS) - as our feature on Britain's bosses ('Get the measure of management', 11 March 2016) pointed out, he left his post as the ninth worst-performing FTSE 100 boss of the 69 who had been in the job for at least two-and-a-half years.
Mr Bolland makes a good corporate comparison for Cristiano Ronaldo in a number of ways. They both had a great 2008 - Mr Bolland was named Businessman of the Year for his success as CEO of Morrison and CR7 won the Ballon d'Or and FIFA World Player of the Year awards (the two awards have since been combined) for his central role in Manchester United's Premier League and Champions League double-winning season. On a more humorous note, we are reliably informed by a journalistic colleague who has interviewed Mr Bolland that, like the famously vain Ronaldo, he seems to be a fan of hair lacquer.
Of course, both men have achieved a great deal in their chosen fields but performances in the biggest roles, and on the grandest stages, leave an indelible mark on legacies. Ronaldo has a big game against Hungary to restore some of the sparkle to his reputation. He needs to perform, if his shots to goal ratio doesn't improve, his tournament statistics could place him as low a position as Mr Bolland was on our 2015-16 CEO list.
