Cristiano Ronaldo is a fallen star who refuses to accept reality - and Messi won't help

Cristiano Ronaldo has become a ceremonial footballer. The ovation he received when he came on as a late substitute in Switzerland's thrashing at the Lusail stadium sounded like that of the return of a conquering hero but in reality it was that of the crushing to earth of a fallen star. p>

Left aside at Manchester United before organizing his escape, he now feels the same sense of fall with Portugal. Ronaldo may still be Portugal's captain, but after being relegated behind Goncalo Ramos in the pecking order - the hero of the hat-trick against the Swiss - he's essentially the team's cheerleader. And not always happy.

The petulance he brought to his final days at Old Trafford was repeated in Qatar. The strop he threw after being substituted in Portugal's last group game against South Korea greatly angered manager Fernando Santos. Santos insisted after the game against Switzerland that his decision to send off Ronaldo was tactical rather than disciplinary, but either way it turned out to be emphatically right.

Portugal were a better team without Ronaldo than with him. It looked like a brake had been released without him against the Swiss. The fluidity, with Joao Felix and Bernano Silva outstanding, was seductive.

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Santos then insisted that Ronaldo could still have a role to play in this World Cup but it is unthinkable now that it will be as a starter. Ramos, 16 years his junior, gave Portugal a crackle and crackle that Ronaldo is no longer capable of.

Decline is never easy to accept or face, especially when one's own rabid ego maintains that nothing has changed, but Erik ten Hag and Santos can't both be wrong. They saw Ronaldo getting closer to club and country and decided to look elsewhere. Of course, the popular vote begs to be different.

The thousands of neutrals inside the stadium who chanted his name on Tuesday night, alternately booing Santos for leaving Ronaldo out and begging him to catch a glimpse of the big man, did so vehemently. When he found the net, the place exploded. Unfortunately, he was offside by yards.

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Ronaldo's 20-minute cameo was entirely peripheral to the result. When the final whistle went against the Swiss, he cheered on the crowd and then went first down the tunnel, leaving his teammates to enjoy the celebrations. They were the ones who won the landslide victory after all.

While his marginalization is hard for Ronaldo to accept, it has to be doubly so given the pivotal role his longtime rival Lionel Messi still plays with Argentina. Everything revolves around Messi for Argentina as it is no longer the case for Ronaldo with Portugal.

At 37, this is his last World Cup. It may also be the end of his career in Portugal. He will have scripted the end of his dream beforehand but it will not have looked like that. One of gaming's all-time greats reduced to the not-so-great sub role.