It felt like it was the biggest moment of the night, on the same evening that England took a three-goal in Spain
Eric Dier, charging 20 yards further forward than he has any right to be, seemingly for the sole purpose of clattering Sergio Ramos, the miscast Marvel villain of this football universe. This was the talking point, the story of the night, the viral GIF borne from a game that included one of the best goals England have ever scored, a first in three years for Raheem Sterling.
Ramos was at the centre of another controversy when it was alleged that he had discreetly stamped on the City winger’s ankle whilst the referee wasn’t looking. The Spain captain responded to the heavy Twitter allegations with his own alternate angle, modern-day Zapruder footage. “Nada más que decir” was the caption. Nothing else to say.
It is remarkable that a player of Ramos’ stature in the game, the highest-capped European outfield player ever with almost 600 appearances for the most successful club in the world, as the only player other than Franz Beckenbauer to lead his team to back-to-back-to-back European Cup trophies, should be reduced to this, a dastardly, villainous cardboard cutout.
A face to shoot with a water pistol at the fairground. Someone to pin up on your wall as a dartboard. Someone to boo and jeer and hiss simply because someone must be booed, and jeered, and hissed.
Football, typically, is a game of two opposing forces. Good and evil, us and them, the team you support and the team you don’t support. The players you like and the players you hate.
Such is Ramos’ prolonged dominance, it is over 13 years now as a key player for both Real Madrid and Spain, and such is his obvious, well, obviousness as the long-sleeved, white-booted centre-back flinging himself up and over bodies like a migrating salmon, he has become something of a lightning rod. Not for criticism exactly, no-one is in doubt just how good he is, but for all the irritation, frustration, rage and bile.
He’s the hotheaded reactionary they love to hate, or so they claim, as they leap onto his every minute discretion like a churlish school dinner lady. Quick lads, get your phones out. Ramos has done another nonsense. What a shithouse. There’s some likes and retweets in this for us if we’re quick enough. Let’s get him.
This is football now, always dependant on the sudden ebb and flow of the internet consensus. Mohamed Salah is the second coming; then he isn’t. Eden Hazard is the best player in the league, that’s been settled for good. At least until Kevin De Bruyne comes back from injury. N’Golo Kante was underrated. Now he’s overrated. Pogba is a fraud. Pogba won the World Cup. Ross Barkley is a flop. No, actually. Ross Barkley is good again.
It’s nothing to do with form. For most players it never swings this wildly between extremes. It’s to do with the way that football is chopped up and processed now, an amalgamation of the bits and pieces that reach you on social media. The overall narrative a cheap, supermarket hamburger. Instant gratification and then bellyache.
His performances, as consistent as any player in world football, are rarely, if ever, analysed. His behaviours, the same kind football fans religiously defend as an unconquerable will to win for the likes of Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira, are scrutinised instead. He is a wrestling heel, complete with a brief face turn in the 93rd minute of the 2014 Champions League final.
When he retires, a few more years and another trophy or two, or three, further down the line, Ramos might finally be appreciated for what he is: the finest defender of a generation. An occasionally reckless one, sure. And yet, a constant in Spain’s unrivalled period of supremacy between 2008 and 2014 and Real Madrid’s own in Europe over the last five years.
In a sense it is fitting he is now Sergio Ramos the meme and not Sergio Ramos the player. Look at him long enough and we might see a bit of ourselves in the rash impulse that defines both his brilliant moments and his worst. The headers, always gorgeously planted into the furthest corners. The constant stealing of the ball off the toes of forwards as they’re thinking about swinging back to shoot. But also the occasional flailing of an elbow, a full-blooded studs-showing reducer now and then.
The internet rejoiced when Eric Dier smashed into Sergio Ramos in the early stages. It was a sort of monumental comeuppance, or revenge, or something. And then he reacted in typical Ramos fashion. Or so it appeared.
Deadspin’s headline called him a “World-Class Asshole” after the Sterling non-incident. Today, they followed it up with a clarifying article about falsely accusing him of stamping on Sterling, that, once again, called him a “World-Class Asshole” in the headline and reiterated the label throughout. In their conclusion, they do meekly concede that he is the best central defender in world football, as though doing so balances out the article.
According to Dier, Ramos actually congratulated him on the tackle afterwards. Maybe after that there should have been nothing left to say.
Nada más que decir.
