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MADRID—Cristiano Ronaldo’s knees were sore. His scoring numbers were down. And Lionel Messi, his hated rival, was still flying high. At age 32, it seemed that Ronaldo’s decline had finally begun. Then in March, a Portuguese airport added insult to injury. Not only did it unveil a statue of him—no one builds statues for athletes in their prime—but the statue made him look goofy, like a bronze Muppet.
Ronaldo couldn’t let his late career devolve into a punch line. He still had trophies to win with Real Madrid and, in his…