Here at Casino Daily News, we tend to talk about our preferred form of gaming – the online slot machine. However, it doesn’t mean we’re not interested in poker or other games.
Indeed, with the 2014 Champions League finally over, something of interest has come to our attention about one of the more controversial players around. It turns out that, like many other great athletes, Cristiano Ronaldo is a fan of online poker, and has been a great fan since his time at Manchester United.
He first came to the attention of the poker-playing world when he was seen playing at the $1/€2 Pot Limit Omaha virtual tables back in 2010 under the username CR7sete. He has become a regular on the celebrity poker circuit, and in December 2013 took part in the European Poker Tour Prague poker festival, competing against the likes of tennis player Rafael Nadal and Ukrainian footballing great Andriy Shevchenko.
He’s also a fairly safe bet for sports betting fans, having scored a record number of goals in the Champions League this last season. He’ll be one of the primary drawcards for the World Cup kicking off in a few weeks in Brazil (which you can get ready for by playing a great new slot called Football Star). Nevertheless, he remains a controversial figure, personality-wise, and nowhere was this more apparent than on Saturday during the Champions League final.
Despite the rather exciting all-Madrid match in Lisbon on Saturday and Gareth Bale’s undeniable show of class in scoring the first of Real Madrid’s 3 extra-time goals, it’s been Cristiano Ronaldo’s gratuitous display of flesh that has irritated the critics.
Although nobody can say that Ronaldo is a bad player – indeed, the Ballon d’Or that he won for the second time in January 2014 says otherwise – he wasn’t in top form on Saturday. The incredible turnaround kicked off by Ramos’s injury-time goal for Real was sealed with Bale and Marcelo finding the back of the net in extra time.
Ronaldo’s penalty that gave Real their 4th goal was not the match changer you’d expect, and yet Ronaldo saw fit to celebrate in a manner more closely resembling a last-minute game-saver, taking off his shirt and flexing like a member of the Chippendales.
We’d have expected him to have some sort of advertising underneath his shirt, perhaps promoting one of his preferred online poker websites. As it stands, he isn’t shy about taking off his kit, having posed with his girlfriend in the buff on the cover of Vogue. However, stripping down is generally frowned upon on the pitch, and the ref duly booked him.
For someone who’s been trying to show that he’s not a spoilt footballing brat, he’s not doing too well. Ronaldo’s skilled, no doubt, and his tactical nous on the field is second to none. However, perhaps he should exercise a bit of the self-control he’s learned while playing poker and apply it to the football pitch.
