Some Amount Of Things From Champions League MD4 Wednesday, and Ronaldo

It was a quieter day in the second of half of MD4.

-I have to admit to a high level of personal frustration and exasperation that the leading result out of the back half of Matchday 4 of the Champions League was that Liverpool were once again caught huffing glue in Istanbul, losing to Fenberbache 3-2. They just never play well in that city, especially in games that they can make up for at a later date, such as this league phase or last year's 1st leg in the Round of 16. It's like they hear that tsunami of noise and flares and without the gotta-do-it motivation, they just kind of get out of there with their ears ringing.

Despite the managerial change, despite the reshuffling of the roster, Liverpool remain capable of just being a very silly team. That's been the story for the past two seasons, and though they teased they'd flushed that out in the past few weeks, their escapades in Europe prove that it still runs through the blood a bit.

They also suffered from Jeremie Jacquet's first blip this season. He turtled in the wall to go from wall to deflector shield for Fenerbache's first goal. And then there was whatever this was for the winner:

Three different Liverpool defenders are climbing onto each other for the right to not jump at a cross that was in the air for at least four minutes. You could tell from the moment that he came onto the pitch that Vedat Muriqi is the kind of yutz who simply is going to crash into people, will play the game as if he's vying for offensive rebounds, the ball might not ever actually touch his feet throughout the whole match, and the only way he can hurt you is if you just let him form a rugby scrum that he can leap over. Look at this dope:

Liverpool did exactly that.

They're also getting slaughtered a bit for rolling with Bradley Barcola as the central striker, and how all the money they spent left them bereft of a backup striker. But that's wide of the mark a bit, because of Huge Ekitike's return in the next couple months. It would have made little sense to splash the money that it would take to get even a viable backup (Arsenal's cost some $80 million, for reference), and then have three strikers in 2027 without the ability to play all of them enough to keep everyone happy and firing. It's just something they have to get through until Ekitike returns.

Anyway, it won't cost Liverpool much. They have dates with Brugge, Lens (more on them in a second), and a home date with Porto, all eminently winnable, which would give them the bye through to the Round of 16. They probably don't even need to get anything out of their trip to play Inter, though they did win there last season. But it is annoying to watch them be silly again in Turkiye.

-The other result to pop was Como's 9-1 deboning of Lens in France. There isn't much to add that "9-1" doesn't already scream at banshee level, but Como's second goal should probably be repurposed for a spot in the Louvre:

From keeper to left-back, sweeping across the field to right-winger, swinging back to the left side of the Lens box, cut back for a finish. It swept across the field like an ocean wave on the beach. That's the height of the sport, really.

-I'll depart from normal service here to address the news of the day, which is Cristiano Ronaldo announcing what had already been announced for him, that he's retiring from Portugal duty. Most will say this should have come 4-6 years ago, but the only way to get Ronaldo out of the spotlight is via aircraft tug. Though it should have been by handcuffs and a jumpsuit.

Ronaldo's international career is an odd study, and one probably linked to Messi's, if only by Ronaldo's insistence. In his first tournaments, Ronaldo dragged a couple underwhelming Portugal teams to a World Cup semifinal in 2006. But Portugal were never really a threat at the World Cup since. Some of those teams weren't very impressive, but some were, and were hampered by Ronaldo's presence rather than aided. When they had an inventive and active midfield and swarming fullbacks, it all broke down trying to pay homage to the obelisk at the business end of the field.

He'll always have the Euros championship of 2016, a feat achieved by playing some of the most soporific football known to man, and Ronaldo limped off during the final and spent the rest of the match trying shove his manager out of the way on the sideline so everyone would know that he was in charge. Again, most every other Euro, Portugal didn't really threaten, and they should have. He was a major reason why.

Much like Messi's Argentina failures before the triumphs, it was seen for a while as Portugal letting him down versus the other way around. But whereas Argentina rose to Messi's level both in teammates and management and they won a lot together, Ronaldo's ending to his international career was Portugal's roster rising beyond him, and him holding them back. That's where they diverge. When Argentina rose to meet Messi in the twilight of his career, they found a symbiosis. When Portugal's roster did the same for Ronaldo, they were at odds and made everything worse. There's plenty of goals, even more preening, and even more ink spilled about it all. But it was definitely short of what it should have been, and Ronaldo spared no effort to convince everyone it was everyone else's fault. It wasn't.