Applause in front of Cristiano Ronaldo is normally a stadium event. This one came from his colleagues in a training-ground room in Riyadh, and it undid him.

Head coach Ange Postecoglou did the talking as Ronaldo returned to training on 13 August, two days after his wedding.

“We welcome back Chris… Congratulations to you and your family, mate,” the Australian told the group.

Ronaldo answered with nothing at all. He grinned, gave a small bow of his head and winked in thanks, and slotted quietly into the circle of teammates.

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Video of the moment was picked up on social media within hours, with fans playing on the mismatch between the man they know from the touchline and the bashful figure on screen.

A civil ceremony in Cascais

The wedding itself matched the tone of the dressing-room clip more than it matched a Ronaldo pre-match ritual. He and Rodriguez married in a private civil ceremony in Cascais, on the Portuguese coast, on 11 August. The couple’s five children were there, along with a handful of witnesses. No teammates. No celebrities.

Ronaldo announced it on Instagram with just two letters and a red heart between them, “C ❤️ G”. Rodriguez wrote on her own post, in Spanish: “Sí, quiero. En esta y en todas mis vidas”, “Yes, I do. In this and in all my lives.”

Thousands at somebody else’s wedding

The low-key ceremony came days after the couple’s fans had provided the opposite spectacle. On 8 August, a rumour swept across European media that Ronaldo and Rodriguez were about to marry at Funchal Cathedral in Madeira, where he grew up. Around 2,000 supporters, many in his No. 7 shirt, packed the late 15th-century church and the streets around it.

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The bride who eventually walked in was not Rodriguez. It was Fátima Nicole Cunha Teixeira, a Madeiran living in France, marrying her partner Fábio Ramos in front of a crowd of strangers who had never heard of either of them. Parish priest Marcos Gonçalves confirmed to reporters that there was only one wedding booked at the cathedral that day, and no reservation for Ronaldo.

Ronaldo’s own answer to the mix-up was a set of laughing emojis on social media.

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