Ronaldo's Tears: What Science Tells Us About Male Emotions in Sports

In the space of a few days, one of the most successful athletes in history went from tears of defeat to tears of joy. Behind a viral image lies one of the most important—and misunderstood—questions in contemporary sports psychology: what it really means when a champion cries.

An uncomfortable hook

May 2026. Ronaldo's tears. In just a few weeks, Cristiano Ronaldo's face appeared twice on screens around the world for the same reason: he was crying.

The first time on the bench, he was devastated after losing the Asian Champions League final to Al-Nassr. The second time came a few days later, in tears after scoring a brace that secured his team the Saudi Pro League title—their first since arriving in Saudi Arabia in January 2023.

At 41, after winning virtually everything football has to offer, a man continues to be moved to tears by a championship victory. The crowd's reaction, predictably, was split between emotion and irony. But the interesting question, for those studying sports psychology, isn't whether those tears were "exaggerated." It's a different, deeper one: why does such a human gesture continue to surprise us when it's performed by a man, and an elite athlete at that?

The answer touches on a delicate and highly topical issue: the relationship between masculinity, emotional expression, and mental health. A topic on which scientific research has much to say, and one that deserves to be addressed with the seriousness it deserves.

What Tears Really Are: A Signal, Not a Weakness

Let's start with a fact that is often overlooked: emotional crying is a uniquely human behavior and, according to researchers who have been studying it for decades, it has a specific function.

The most authoritative work in this field is that of Ad Vingerhoets' research group at Tilburg University, which has spent years understanding the evolutionary and social significance of tears. The conclusion, summarized in numerous studies, is that crying is primarily a form of nonverbal social communication, evolved to seek closeness, comfort, and support from others.

Tears, in other words, are a signal. And a particularly powerful one: studies show that when we see someone crying, we recognize it as a reliable indicator of genuine emotion, more convincing than words. In a large study conducted in 41 countries, seeing emotional tears increased people's intention to offer support to the weeping person, simultaneously communicating vulnerability and human warmth and, in effect, strengthening social bonds.

There's more. Tears appear to clarify the meaning of a facial expression: in a well-known experiment, digitally removing tears from a crying person's face made the expression ambiguous and indecipherable. It's tears that tell the world, unequivocally, what a person is feeling.

Translated into the language of sport: Ronaldo's tears aren't a sign of failure. They're a biological and social system working exactly as it should.

The real problem: repression is expensive

If crying is a healthy sign, why do so many athletes—and men in general—go to such lengths to hold it back?

This is where research on emotion regulation comes into play, and in particular the model developed by psychologist James Gross of Stanford University, now a cornerstone of affective psychology. Gross distinguishes between different strategies we use to manage our feelings. Two, in particular, have been compared in hundreds of studies:

• Expressive suppression: deliberately inhibiting the external manifestation of an emotion, “putting on a mask,” keeping everything inside.
• Cognitive reevaluation: rereading and reinterpreting the situation that generates the emotion, modifying its meaning.

The difference between the two is significant. The evidence, gathered from numerous longitudinal and experimental studies, converges with remarkable consistency: those who habitually resort to suppression tend to report more depressive symptoms, greater fatigue, lower self-esteem, and lower life satisfaction. A meta-analysis that simultaneously examined repression and expression in everyday interactions showed that when people repress their emotions, they experience an intrapersonal cost—more depressed mood, more fatigue, lower self-esteem.

A crucial detail for athletes: suppression doesn't just turn off negative emotions. It also reduces the experience of positive emotions and doesn't change the emotion felt internally at all—it acts too late, simply masking what's already being felt, often at the cost of increased physiological arousal. You pay for the effort, but you don't get relief.

Conversely, greater emotional expression in daily life has been associated with interpersonal benefits: greater acceptance from others, a greater sense of connection, and more satisfying relationships. This is exactly what an athlete under pressure needs.

The point, honestly, isn't that "crying is always good" and repression "always hurts": emotional regulation is sensitive to context and culture, and there are times when containing a reaction is the right choice. But as a habitual style, chronic repression comes at a steep price.

Where masculinity comes into play

And here we come to the delicate heart of the matter. Because suppression, statistically, is not randomly distributed: it is closely linked to the way men are educated to "be men."

Psychology has a tool for measuring how closely a person conforms to traditional models of masculinity: the Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory (CMNI), developed by Mahalik and colleagues. Among the dimensions it measures are some particularly relevant—emotional control, self-sufficiency, and the drive to always win—which well describe the archetype of the "tough" champion who never gives in.

The landmark meta-analysis on this topic, conducted by Y. Joel Wong and colleagues and published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology (2017), analyzed dozens of studies involving over 19,000 participants. The result is clear: stronger conformity to traditional masculine norms is associated with poorer mental health and more negative attitudes toward seeking psychological help. The most problematic dimensions—including self-sufficiency and emotional control at all costs—are those most consistently linked to negative outcomes.

A more recent systematic review summed up the phenomenon with a powerful phrase: men who strongly adhere to these norms find themselves in a state of "double jeopardy," experiencing greater psychological distress and, at the same time, being less willing to seek help. They endure in silence because they have internalized the idea that emotional vulnerability equates to weakness. In a study of nearly 14,000 Australian men, adherence to masculine standards of emotional suppression and stoicism was associated with a significantly higher risk of suicide attempts.

This isn't an abstract fact. It's the cultural root of a problem that sports are well aware of. Visit our website www.sportpsychologycenter.com

Elite sport: where the taboo is strongest

No environment amplifies this mechanism like high-level competitive sport. The culture of performance, with its rhetoric of strength, endurance, and "never give up," creates the perfect breeding ground for emotional repression to become not only accepted, but celebrated.

This is confirmed by the most authoritative document on the topic: the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Consensus Statement on Mental Health in Elite Athletes (2019), drafted by a large international panel of experts and published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. The systematic reviews that informed it indicate that mental health disorders affect up to one in three elite athletes each year, and that stigma is the main obstacle preventing these athletes from seeking help: the deep-rooted belief that mental distress is a sign of weakness and not the normal condition of a human being under extreme pressure. The document also explicitly highlights the role of gender stereotypes.

The good news is that research itself points the way forward. The IOC Consensus recommends that sports organizations discuss mental health openly, valorize the testimonies of athletes who have experienced difficulties to normalize them, and build a culture that reduces stigma and encourages help-seeking. Interventions aimed at increasing mental health literacy and reducing stigma—both public and internalized—have been shown to improve athletes' intention to seek support.

In other words: every time a visible and respected athlete displays authentic emotion without shame, he or she is doing—perhaps unknowingly—exactly what science recommends.

Reread those tears

Let's return to the image we started with. A 41-year-old man crying, first over a defeat and shortly after over a victory.

Read through the lens of research, that scene takes on a completely different meaning. It's not the "fragility" of a champion in decline. It's an athlete who, at the highest levels and before a global audience, openly expresses what he feels—expressing rather than repressing, signaling rather than masking. Psychologically, it's the healthiest behavior possible.

The real question isn't why Ronaldo cries. It's why it still seems remarkable that he does. As long as showing emotion remains, for a man, and even more so for an athlete, a gesture worthy of note or irony, it means the cultural taboo is still very much alive—and that the work of those who work on mental well-being in sport is far from over.

What we bring home

For athletes, coaches, and parents, the research offers some clear messages:

• Emotions are not the enemy of performance. Habitually repressing them has a documented psychological cost and does not improve what you feel: it only hides it, often increasing internal tension.
• Knowing how to regulate emotions is a trainable skill, just like strength or technique. Strategies like cognitive reappraisal can be learned and improve well-being over time.
• Culture matters. A sports environment that treats mental health like a physical injury—without judgment, with competence—is an environment that protects its athletes.
• Asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness. It is perhaps the most important message, and the one that takes the longest to take root in male and competitive environments.

At the Sport Psychology Center, we work every day on this: helping athletes recognize, understand, and regulate their feelings, both on and off the field. Because the mind, like the body, needs training. And learning not to be afraid of your emotions is one of the most important exercises an athlete can do.

Sources and further information

Statements and journalistic sources

• ANSA, Ronaldo doppietta e lacrime, l’Al Nassr campione d’Arabia (22 maggio 2026)
• Tuttosport, Cristiano Ronaldo trionfa nella Saudi Pro League: doppietta leggendaria e lacrime (21 maggio 2026)
• Sportmediaset / Mediaset, Ronaldo perde la finale con l’Al Nassr, le sue lacrime fanno il giro del mondo (maggio 2026)

Academic sources

• Gross, J. J. (1998). The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Review of General Psychology, 2(3), 271–299. Vedi anche Gross, J. J. (2015). Emotion regulation: Current status and future prospects. Psychological Inquiry, 26(1), 1–26. http://chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://emotion.wisc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/1353/2021/11/Gross-1998-The-Emerging-Field-of-Emotion-Regulation-An-Integrative-Review.pdf
• Gross, J. J., & John, O. P. (2003). Individual differences in two emotion regulation processes: implications for affect, relationships, and well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(2), 348–362.
• Wong, Y. J., Ho, M.-H. R., Wang, S.-Y., & Miller, I. S. K. (2017). Meta-analyses of the relationship between conformity to masculine norms and mental health-related outcomes. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 64(1), 80–93.
• Mahalik, J. R., Locke, B. D., Ludlow, L. H., Diemer, M. A., Scott, R. P. J., Gottfried, M., & Freitas, G. (2003). Development of the Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 4(1), 3–25.
• Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M., & Bylsma, L. M. (2016). The riddle of human emotional crying: A challenge for emotion researchers. Emotion Review.
• Zickfeld, J. H., van de Ven, N., Vingerhoets, A., et al. (2021). Tears evoke the intention to offer social support: A systematic investigation across 41 countries. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
• Reardon, C. L., et al. (2019). Mental health in elite athletes: International Olympic Committee consensus statement. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 53(11), 667–699.
• Mokhwelepa, L. W., & Sumbane, G. O. (2025). Men’s Mental Health Matters: a systematic review. American Journal of Men’s Health.

Questo articolo ha finalità divulgative e non sostituisce una consulenza psicologica professionale. Se tu o un atleta che segui state attraversando un periodo di difficoltà, parlarne con un professionista è il primo passo — e un segno di forza.