Satire: Cristiano Ronaldo's open letter asking people to no longer call him Penaldo

Cristiano Ronaldo’s missed penalty saw Portugal draw against Austria

Dear folks,

I, Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro, the best player in the world with the sexiest thighs ever, share my warm affection to the people who are reading this letter currently. I have taken time out of my very busy schedule to write you this (I am currently skipping my eye-brow plucking session) to request you all to stop calling me Penaldo.

Among many things, people like to call me Penaldo because, apparently, I score a lot of my goals via penalties. First of all, this is not true. I only score like 385750 penalty goals every season, which is clearly not enough to label me Penaldo.

However, since you people’s ability to judge rationally is as bad as Lionel Messi’s tendency to pay taxes, you guys have continuously bombarded me with that tag.

Honestly, I don’t care about my haters. They hate me because I am rich, handsome (ever noticed my flawless teeth?) and a great player. However, I have decided to take measures because my own son now calls me Penalty Baba.

So how do I stop people from calling me that? Simple. I start missing penalties.

The first step was against Bayern Munich in the Champions League semi-final clash in 2012. I purposely missed that penalty because it was on a grand stage and people were watching.

Since then, it has been a long road, a difficult one. But now, after 4 years, I can proudly admit that I have missed 19 penalties in my career—as much as Lionel Messi. Now, I dare you to call me Penaldo.

If you were thinking that I missed them because I wasn’t able to score or that the goalkeeper was able to save them, then you are wrong. I missed them on purpose, to remove that horrible tag off my head. I don’t miss anything, not even paying taxes like some Argentine does.

There are times when I wake up in the middle of the night, thinking about the intricacies of life. I wonder the point of my existence, whether I have done good in this world. Whilst my mind gets tangled in a myriad of questions, I find solace when I realize the number of my team-mates I have saved from embarrassment.

How is that, you might think. Imagine them taking free-kicks and penalties instead of me. Obviously, they would have missed much more than I do, hence exposing themselves to the humiliation from the general mass.

However, God sent me as an angel who saves the mere mortals from such adverse situations—hence, I take them and show how selfless I am by putting myself at risk for the betterment of my team-mates.

Finally, people are claiming that I am no longer a good free-kick taker and that Gareth Bale should be the primary set-piece taker at Real Madrid. Scoring from free-kicks is just too easy for me and hence, I miss them on purpose. Also, I am extremely generous and thus shoot the ball towards the crowd so that some lucky soul can touch the ball and be happy about it.

However, Bale is selfish and likes scoring easy goals. Scoring from penalties is the hardest thing because the goalkeeper is nearer to the ball, but free-kicks are easier because I say so. And he doesn’t like to bring happiness to the lives of his fans, so he doesn’t shoot the ball to the stands.

Anyways, I have written a lot. I have already sacrificed a lot of time writing this and now I can only spend 3 hours with my hairdresser for the day. I am sad and the club knows why.

Sincerely,

Cristiano Ronaldo.