The Ronaldo fan playbook is genuinely fascinating. Ronaldo fan culture has become one of the greatest case studies in coping I've ever seen.
Every Argentina match comes with a fresh conspiracy. The refs. The added time. A handball nobody else can see. A foul that never happened. FIFA. The media. The schedule. Whatever excuse is available that day.
We're in a World Cup where Argentina haven't exactly been living off penalties, yet somehow the victim narrative gets recycled after every game. It never ends.
What makes it so transparent is that all these complaints point in one direction. They exist to downplay Messi's achievements and make the gap between him and Ronaldo look smaller than it actually is.
Why. Why does every success need an excuse attached to it? Why does every result need a conspiracy theory?
Because deep down they know time has run out. Ronaldo is at the end of his career. The major achievements left to chase are disappearing. The debate is becoming harder to argue on the pitch, so it gets argued through victimhood, excuses, and increasingly ridiculous theories instead.
What bothers me isn't even the football side of it anymore. It's the mentality behind it. When someone is willing to ignore obvious facts, invent motives, and build entire narratives around things that never happened simply because reality is uncomfortable, that says something about how they process the world. Sports don't exist in a vacuum. The habits people display in football debates often reflect habits they carry elsewhere. Constant blame shifting, conspiracy thinking, and refusal to accept outcomes are not admirable traits in any setting.
You're allowed to prefer Ronaldo. That's normal. Turning every match into a conspiracy board covered in red string is not. That's just the behavior of people struggling to accept an outcome they don't like.
24.7% - Arsenalโs possession average (24.7%) was the lowest by a team in a UEFA Champions League final on record (since 2003-04), as well as their lowest in any match under Mikel Arteta where they had 11 men on the pitch throughout. Reactive.
Discipline is a culture built over time.
Buhari's military government started a war against indiscipline and many Nigerians still hold it against him till date because we love our life of indiscipline. That "war," if continued, would have been ingrained in our national consciousness but IBB came, abolished it, did the opposite and our lives have never remained the same since then.