Too famous for football? Ronaldo has outgrown the sport that made him

After the drama of the pitch invasions, it is clear football-and Uefa has-not come to terms with his status

- Barney Ronay

There was something disconcerting about the man being grabbed and jostled and hauled away by security guards on the concrete causeway below the executive boxes half an hour after full time at BVB Stadion Dortmund on Saturday night. For one thing the man seemed unusually well-groomed, brilliantly earringed, dressed in full shiny Portugal tracksuit. He was also beaming relentlessly, shouting things such as "Big Love" and "Say hi to Georgina", doing the heart gesture with his hands even as three men in hi-vis jackets grabbed him by the elbows.

Could he be a player? A stray squad member? Looking closer there was something a touch inauthentic and weak-chinned about his take on the handsome, cool, young footballer look, the muscle definition not quite there, jewellery not credible. The whole tableau was being watched by its own dedicated group of spectators. Who is he, we asked? The spectators shrugged. He's Cristiano Ronaldo.

What the stadium security guards were grappling with in that moment was a deeply post-modern event. Here we had a Cristiano Ronaldo lookalike, or Cristiano Ronaldo cosplayer, trying to break through the fourth wall, to intersect with the actual components of Cristiano Ronaldo's real life, entourage, bouncers, family.

Perhaps the weirdest part was the fact this barely seemed strange in this context. Being a Ronaldo lookalike is a legitimate career path, judging by the large number of them on the internet and newspaper stories on the latest AMAZING CR7 LOOKALIKE over footage of a hair-gelled youth doing a "Siuuu" gesture in a Turkish shopping centre.