Cristiano Ronaldo's birthday party after 4-0 loss to rival Atletico Madrid angers Real Madrid fans for no good reason
Cristiano Ronaldo turned 30 last Thursday. On Saturday, he had a birthday party – because, you know, people have parties when it's their birthday. And now some other people are upset.
Hours before his party, Ronaldo and his Real Madrid companions had been hammered 4-0 by cross-town rivals Atletico Madrid, whose suffocating defense neutralized Ronaldo, the FIFA Ballon d'Or winner as the best player in the world for the last two years.
And then, horror of horrors, a video surfaced – because a video always surfaces – of Ronaldo seemingly having a good time at his own birthday party, belting along with some singer up on stage.
"How could he do such a thing?" a chorus quickly cried. "They had lost! Badly!"
Well, here at FC Yahoo, we believe in a work-life balance. We think that professional athletes are well within their rights to go about their night normally, even after a loss. After all, would we expect some advertising executive to pout all weekend after he lost a major account on Friday night? Or to skip his own birthday party? Surely not.
But athletes aren't extended that same courtesy. So Ronaldo's agent Jorge Mendes had to go on Spanish radio to defend his client.
"He was very angry," Mendes said to Cadena Ser, according to the Press Association. "Any player that loses a game – and more so Ronaldo, who is a great professional, who continues to be the best professional in the world – would be angry."
"The fact is that his birthday party had been organized more than a month ago and he had family coming from abroad," Mendes continued. "He didn't want to cancel out of respect for the people that came. … Ronaldo was devastated after the defeat and people spent two hours trying to cheer him up."
Ronaldo didn't look devastated in the short clip. But that's hardly the point. He gets to have a life outside of soccer. It's important that he does and it's quite possibly beneficial to his performance on the field. Acting incensed that he went to a party – celebrating his own birthday, for chrissakes! – is sanctimonious.
Party on, CR7.
Party on.
Leander Schaerlaeckens is a soccer columnist for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.
