When Lionel Messi lost the 2014 World Cup final and suffered back-to-back Copa América final defeats, nobody wanted to hear about his teammates. Players like Sergio Agüero, Gonzalo Higuaín, Ángel Di María, and Ezequiel Lavezzi were all stars at top European clubs, yet the entire blame was placed on Messi. The narrative was simple: “Messi is a failure outside Barcelona” and “he’s a fraud without Barça. So where is this sudden sympathy coming from now for Cristiano Ronaldo? Why is the conversation suddenly about teammates not showing up for him whenever Portugal disappoints at the World Cup? Since making his debut in 2006, Ronaldo has played alongside world-class talent too but now the standards seem completely different.