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Cristiano Ronaldo Put Portugal In The Euro 2012 Semifinals, Then Maybe Possibly Trash-Talked Lionel Messi

Portugal’s headed to the Euro 2012 semifinals after a 1-0 win over the Czech Republic today, with (who else?) Cristiano Ronaldo providing the game’s lone score. Ronaldo, who had several good chances before finally burying the header in the 79th minute, was dominant – even if you loathe him, even if you think he has one of the most hate-able faces on the planet, even if you’re a Barcelona and/or Messi fanboy, it’s hard not to give the guy his due for being one hell of a player. Below, the latest of many, many pieces of evidence of this: Ronaldo’s goal today.

But the goal itself isn’t the only thing people are talking about – there’s also been a word or two about Ronaldo’s reaction to his goal. Sure, there was the normal celebration, which always enables Ronaldo to make face after face that makes his haters despise him even more – but then there was a little something more. Ronaldo blew a kiss to the camera and also said… something. Exactly what he said, we’ll never know. But it looked, to many people who saw it, like he was delivering a message to his chief rival, the guy to whom he’ll always be compared (usually unfavorably) – Messi. Did he? Via SB Nation, decide here:

Of course, it doesn’t really change anything whether he did or not, and calling out Messi during a tournament Messi can’t even play in would be a little odd – but screw it, we hope he was calling out Messi. Ronaldo-Messi is a great individual rivalry, and this would only serve to enhance it. It’d be a perfect villain-y thing for big, bad Ronaldo to do to the little-engine-that-could Messi. It would actually make us like him more (count us among those hopelessly biased against Ronaldo because he just looks annoying).

Then again, since the “did Ronaldo call out Messi?” discussion is being had, it doesn’t really matter whether or not it actually happened. It’s still a talking point, something that pushes the rivalry to another level in fans’ minds (and if the rivalry exists there, then what else really matters?). And there will be more such talking points to come – and a renewed debate as to who’s really the world’s best player – if Ronaldo can repeat today’s heroics in the semifinal. And despite being unabashedly #TeamMessi, an escalated rivalry sounds pretty good to us.