MOSCOW — At age 33, Cristiano Ronaldo doesn’t so much run anymore as he threatens to run. Let the other players sprint and chase all game, he signals with his exquisite lack of industriousness. I will wait here, or maybe just over there, until it is time to do the scoring.
Ronaldo mostly has jogged at this World Cup. More often, he has walked. It is not that he cannot run, or doesn’t want to; he is just in no hurry until he has to be. A good striker only needs to be in the right place once or twice a game to be world class, after all, and no one in the world spots those one or two places better than Ronaldo, who ran his World Cup scoring lead to four goals in the blink of an eye on Wednesday afternoon.