Ronaldo back in Italy against familiar rivals Atalanta aiming to orchestrate United revival
The last sight Italian football had of Cristiano Ronaldo in one of its stadiums was of an angry man. He had one foot out of the door of Juventus, eyeing a return to English football.
But he packed plenty of drama into his last 40 minutes as Serie A’s superstar.
Juventus were away at Udinese, on the late-August opening day of the current league season. Soon after Udinese had pulled a goal back from 2-0 down, Ronaldo, who had started on the bench, was brought on. He was fuming when Udinese equalised. A header just missed the target.
In the fourth minute of stoppage, when he leapt to power in a Federico Cheisa cross, all of Italy was reminded that, even in his 20th season as a senior professional, Ronaldo is not ready to be displaced as king of the dramatic comeback. He stripped off his shirt, certain he had won the game. He was livid when VAR, after a long deliberation, ruled him offside by the length of an elbow joint.
Five days later he was signing, for a second time in his career, for Manchester United, in whose colours he returns to northern Italy this evening, with another comeback in prospect.
Win in Bergamo against Atalanta and United would go within a point of securing progress out of their Champions League group – a group in which they lost their opening match, to Young Boys of Switzerland, and trailed in their next two, at home to Villarreal and Atalanta.
Ronaldo, 36, sealed the turnaround from defeat to victory in both those matches.
The Atalanta manager, Gian Piero Gasperini, shared his thoughts yesterday on Ronaldo’s first return to Italy. “I was actually sorry he moved back to England,” Gasperini said, “because I always like to see the best footballers playing in Italy. He added value to our football. He is simply exceptional, but saying that only repeats what everybody recognises.”
But not everybody has witnessed Ronaldo’s late match-winning knack in quite such concentration as the Atalanta coach.
Rewind to Ronaldo’s first season with Juventus, 201819, when ambitious Atalanta welcomed the reigning Serie A champions in late December They led Juve 2-1, with 12 minutes to go. Cue Ronaldo, with a header, and the equaliser.
The next season, a similar story. Atalanta went to the Juventus stadium, led 1-0 at half time and led 2-1 in the 90th minute. Guess who earned Juventus a point? Ronaldo converted both equalisers from the penalty spot.
At Old Trafford 13 nights ago, Ronaldo’s 81st-minute goal turned a 2-0 half-time deficit into a 3-2 victory. “We have to make sure we give him very little,” resolved Gasperini.
The blessing for Atalanta is that Merih Demiral, the central defender who scored against United but was then taken off with a muscle problem, is fit to marshall Ronaldo. They are still, though, without injured defender Berat Djimsiti and the wing-backs Rafael Toloi and Robin Gosens.
Atalanta, described by United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as “attacking, aggressive, a team with a unispecial style” will likely stick to Gasperini’s preferred back-three system.
Whether United also play with wing-backs and a front pairing, Ronaldo as one of them, remains to be seen. It was successful against Tottenham Hotspur at the weekend, and the system used for the 3-0 win in London corrected some of the apparent flaws.
“We have players to play many different systems — back three, back five, wide men, wingers,” Solskjaer said. “But I can’t say what we will do against Atalanta. You can put any system out but it is about the players executing. If we get consistency we will get results.”