- Ronaldo was left in tears after missing his penalty during extra-time on Monday
- He made amends by scoring Portugal’s first in their penalty shootout victory
- LISTEN to It’s All Kicking Off! EUROS DAILY: Do you love or loathe ‘narcissistic main character’ Cristiano Ronaldo?
BBC pundits have hailed Cristiano Ronaldo for his response to missing a penalty during Portugal’s last-16 victory over Slovenia.
The 39-year-old was left in tears after his spot-kick was saved by Jan Oblak during extra-time. Footage shows Ronaldo seeing his mother, Dolores, in the stands before breaking down.
He had to be consoled by his team-mates and manager Roberto Martinez as the game continued and neither side found the net in extra-time, leaving a penalty shootout as the only way to split the two teams.
Ronaldo made amends for this miss though as he converted Portugal’s first spot-kck in the shootout.
Speaking during BBC’s coverage of the last-16 clash between Romania and the Netherlands, Alan Shearer said that Ronaldo ‘deserved great credit’.
The former England striker said: ‘He’s 39 years of age and he can’t be as good as he was 10 years ago but his aura and his belief that he has, has never changed and all of that last night was a classic example of that.
‘It has to be about him, he’s certainly not as quick as he was. But his movement inside the box is brilliant.
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‘But I’ll tell you what, for him to step up first, after he’d missed one, the pressure that he was under and then to put it in the side netting from the penalty, that takes some doing and he deserves great credit for that.’
Former Lionesses star Alex Scott said: ‘I think that was the strange thing to see him so emotional and in tears knowing that you’ve still got so far to go and that its not over. But then like you said, for him to step up in that moment and say ‘Actually I’m going to take this penalty.”
Match of the Day host Gary Lineker said that he experienced something slightly similar with Paul Gascoigne at Italia ’90.
On that occasion Gascoigne was left in floods of tears mid-game after picking up a yellow card which ruled him out of the World Cup final if England had gone on to reach it.
Lineker then added that Ronaldo’s tears was ‘remarkable and emotional’.
Scott agreed with Lineker saying that Ronaldo ‘wears his heart on his sleeve,’ before the presenter said that he was driven.
Former Welsh international Ashley Williams, who was also on punditry duty, said: ‘Maybe it just got the better of him, but to step up and put your hand up first – we know he likes that, but to put it away – fair play.’