Lothar Matthaus is 63 now. And if that may depress those who remember him in his dominant prime, let alone those who conjure images of him as German football’s wunderkind of the early 1980s, it has an added pertinence. He played in the last European Championship that did not feature Cristiano Ronaldo.
There are other ways of illustrating Ronaldo’s age, of course: Francisco Conceicao, scored of the late winner in the first game of Ronaldo’s sixth such tournament, was one year old when played in his first and is the son of a rival for a berth on the flanks, in Sergio Conceicao. His first goal for his country came in a European Championship. So did Ronaldo’s, but they were separated by two decades.
