Ronaldo lashes out at Iceland celebrations

Iceland became the least populous nation ever to appear in the European Championship because they had a dream and they pursued it with an intelligence and devotion that makes them a model for countries of all sizes, and a football nation that Ronaldo would admire if he were not too busy admiring himself or, more pertinently perhaps, lamenting the repeated failure of his own country to fulfil its potential.

“They celebrated like they had won the Euro cup or something. When they don’t try to play and just defend, defend, defend this in my opinion shows a small mentality and they are not going to do anything in the competition.” . The likes of Eric Cantona, Mark Hughes, Steve Bruce, Peter Schmeichel, Roy Keane and Paul Scholes would’ve kicked their grandmother if it would help them win and that’s what made the club the greatest team in England and Europe.

Arnason, who along with Ragnar Sigurdsson marked Ronaldo out of the game in Saint-Etienne, instead declared Iceland were unlucky not to win the game and criticised the forward for his reaction.

“It was a little bit frustrating”.

The game had begun with Iceland captain and Cardiff City player Aron Gunnarsson putting in a hard but fair challenge on Ronaldo inside the opening 15 seconds.

“Iceland didn’t try nothing, they just defend, defend, defend, they had two chances and scored a goal, it was a lucky night for them”, he raged. They parked a bus in the net.

“We are going to play an excellent game against Austria and we are going to win”, Santos said. If you see Spain and France, they are the strongest teams in the tournament and even they had a hard time to win their first game.

But Iceland midfielder Kari Arnason responded: “It just makes it sweeter that he is a bad loser”. He can say whatever he wants. It’s good defending and taking the chances we get. So what can I say?

“He had a header in the final minutes of the game and a chance in the first-half, but otherwise I thought we had him under control”, added Arnason. “It was lovely to hear that”. It shows we got under his skin.

Arnason also attempted to rile Ronaldo further, asserting that Argentine icon Lionel Messi will always be better than him.

“Ronaldo is a fantastic footballer – but he’s not a gracious human being”, he said”.

“Obviously we’re not going to create as much chances as a fantastic team like Portugal but his comments are the reason why Messi is always going to be one step ahead of him”.