If you didn’t look and just listened, it almost sounded like: “Messi, Messi”. And that could have been true, after all, Cristiano Ronaldo has been provoked worldwide with chants about his biggest sporting rival for years.
But if you looked and listened more closely, you could hear the voices of the Portuguese fans in Dortmund’s Signal Iduna Park. They certainly wouldn’t provoke their own heroes – instead they sang to them: “Pepe, Pepe”.
A little later, the chants rang out one last time when the oldest player in European Championship history, aged 41 years and 113 days, was substituted in the 83rd minute. Pepe received a standing ovation. This was also the case from the Turkish fans, whose volume had been turned down considerably by the one-sided game and the clear deficit.
The praise was fully justified, after all, the central defender delivered a consistently strong performance against Turkey. Four ball wins, an outstanding seven clearances, a pass rate of almost 97 percent – the old man exuded the vibes in the Dortmund stadium that the 35-year-old Mats Hummels had provided for BVB last season thanks to numerous great performances.
