Ronaldo moved Coke aside at a press conference — headlines said it cost $4 billion

Coca-Cola was a sponsor of Euro 2020, and its bottles sat on the press-conference table before Portugal's opener against Hungary in Budapest on 14 June 2021. Cristiano Ronaldo, the tournament's biggest star, arrived, moved two Coke bottles aside, held up a bottle of water and said 'Água!' — water — to the room full of cameras.

The market reaction made the gesture famous. Coca-Cola's share price fell 1.6% that day to $55.22, taking its market value from about $242 billion to $238 billion — the roughly $4 billion drop that headlines worldwide pinned on Ronaldo. The company's response was studied calm: 'Everyone is entitled to their drink preferences,' it told ESPN; a Euro 2020 spokesperson added that players were offered water alongside the sponsor's products.

Whether the share fall was really his doing was never established — a 1.6% move is ordinary market noise — but the correlation was the story, and the $4 billion figure stuck to the clip. For one afternoon, a footballer's drink preference was the lead financial headline about a $230 billion company.