Budapest, June 16: Portugal's talismanic striker Cristiano Ronaldo courted some controversy ahead of his team's Euro 2020 match against Hungary on Tuesday night.
Ronaldo seemed to be not a fan of carbonated soft drinks after the Portugal captain removed two bottles of Coca-Cola kept in front of him at the Euro 2020 press conference, encouraging people to drink water instead.
The 36-year-old moved the cola bottles aside as he sat down to speak to the media before the Group F opener against Hungary. He followed it by holding a bottle of water before shouting in Portuguese: 'Agua!'
What a legend! Soccer superstar @Cristiano removes two branded cola bottles from the desk during his press conference, and says “drink water” instead. Leadership like this matters. Kids around the world will see this & act. @Raf_Epstein @LisaMillar pic.twitter.com/htjtJ3pnTv
— Dr Sandro Demaio (@SandroDemaio) June 15, 2021
The UEFA has not commented about the incident yet as Coca Cola is an official sponsor of Euro 2020.
The whole incident also adversely affected the soft drink major's market share as they suffered a dip in USD 4 billion (Approximately Rs 29349 crore in INR) over the last two days - from a total market earning of USD 242 billion to USD 238 billion, a dip of 1.6 per cent.
But all these hullabaloo does not seem to affect Ronaldo on the pitch as the striker scored twice and overtook Michel Platini as the top-scorer in all of Euro championships.
Ronaldo went into the Euro 2020 level with France great Platini on 9 goals but his penalty in Budapest to move his side 2-0 ahead put him out in front with 10 goals.
The Juventus star was making his 22nd European Championship appearance. Platini needed just five games to reach his nine-goal haul, all of which came at Euro 84. But Ronaldo scored a goal in the 89th minute to make it 11 goals in Euro.
His spot-kick against Hungary has taken him to within two of Miroslav Klose's record (19) for the most goals scored by a European player at the World Cup and Euros.
Though arguably even greater than that is the fact Ronaldo is now just four behind Ali Daei's world record of 109 international goals, the Iranian scoring those in a 13-year period from 1993.