Juventus pinning hopes on superstar Ronaldo
Turin club show their romantic side, but £99m signing has stoked the lust for glory,
‘This year, we really have to set ourselves the target of winning everything’
Today marks 15 years since Cristiano Ronaldo’s Manchester United debut against Bolton Wanderers at Old Trafford in front of 67,647 people. The story may be familiar.
With Sir Alex Ferguson’s hosts leading 1-0 close to the hour mark, the 18-year-old replaced Nicky Butt. Having joined the club four days before with a weighty reputation and a £12.2million price tag, he wore the hallowed No7 shirt that David Beckham had recently vacated.
His nest of dark, greasy hair was streaked with highlights, each one starchier than leftover spaghetti.
Wanderers right-back Nicky Hunt dispossessed Ronaldo with a robust tackle. From then on, the new boy delighted Ferguson and United fans.
He roamed the pitch, causing problems on either flank. He won a penalty and earned a congratulatory slap from Roy Keane. His team went on to triumph 4-0. Bolton manager Sam Allardyce had gleaned intelligence from his own new signing, Mario Jardel, a former Sporting Lisbon team-mate of Ronaldo.
Afterwards, he admitted that Jardel’s awed praise had been completely justified. Allardyce seemed to gauge the significance of what he had just seen immediately.
“He can go inside, outside. He uses both feet and runs at people. Everyone holds their breath when he has the ball.”
Since leaving Bolton in 2010, Hunt has meandered through 11 clubs across England. He spent the 2017-18 campaign at Notts County. On July 31 this year, he joined Crewe Alexandra on a one-year contract.
Juventus tied down their major acquisition earlier in the summer. On July 10, they had announced the arrival of Ronaldo from Real Madrid for £99.2 million.
Last Sunday, with five Ballons d’or and the same number of Champions League titles won, Ronaldo played his first match in a Juventus shirt. The scene could not have been more different to a packed, braying Old Trafford.
Villar Perosa is home to an estate owned by the Agnelli family who run Juventus. For 63 years, the small town, 50 kilometres south-west of Turin, has witnessed a match between the first team and the youth side – Juventus Primavera.
About 5,000 fans, 1,000 more than the population of Villar Perosa, get to watch. Tickets sell out rapidly.
“To play on the small field that experiences this glorious day makes for a moment of unity for everybody involved,” says grizzled defender Giorgio Chiellini.
Bianconeri icon Gianluigi Buffon, now at Paris St-germain, salutes “a romantic side that survives, and we can’t let go of it”. This year, cars queued outside Villar Perosa six hours before the 5pm kick-off.
Ronaldo started, and scored within eight minutes of a 5-0 win for Massimiliano Allegri’s seniors.
Tradition dictates that a peaceful second-half pitch invasion ends this game. Players donate their kit to spectators on the run, weaving through admirers in their underpants.
The occasion shows the importance of fostering and maintaining a tangible connection between players and fans in professional sport. But the weekend mixes adulation with cold, hard expectation, as Juventus chairman Andrea Agnelli laid out the season’s aims.
“This year, we really have to set ourselves the target of winning everything,” Agnelli told the squad last weekend.
In 15 years, Ronaldo has developed from precocious teenager into prolific champion. Agnelli and Juventus want to ride that wave.