RONALDO IS KING AGAIN
Magic of the past is back to offer United hope of a brighter future as two-goal Cr is ti a no takes centre stage
THE first half was coming to a close when time lurched backwards at Old Trafford. Mason Greenwood, the teenage forward who is a superstar in the making, cut in from the right and drilled a left-foot shot towards the Newcastle goal. It took a slight deflection and spilled from the hands of Freddie Woodman as he tried to gather it. And as the ball rolled loose, a figure lurked.
Cristiano Ronaldo took a step forward. Woodman tried to recover his ground but Ronaldo knew he would not get there. Ronaldo was three yards out. He has probably never scored an easier goal, even in his magnificent career. He moved towards the ball and caressed it into the empty net and United were ahead. And United were top of the Premier League.
Ronaldo looked across to the touchline to check that the linesman was not going to raise his flag. He did not. And then he strode across to the fans in the lower tier of the stand and did that theatrical jump that is his trademark celebration, leaping into the air and turning in mid-flight and then planting his feet on the turf. It has always seemed like a celebration and a preening ritual rolled into one.
And so there was a new star at Old Trafford. Same as the old star. And in that moment, it became evident again that when United signed Ronaldo from Juventus to seal his second coming at Old Trafford, they did not just buy one of the greatest football players the world has ever seen. They managed an even more clever trick than that. They bought the past.
That is why there was quite such an outpouring of fervour about Ronaldo’s return to Manchester 12 years after he left for Real Madrid to conquer Europe again and again, win the Ballon d’Or five times and establish himself as the only true rival to the rule of Lionel Messi. Ronaldo represents something that United lost. He represents a time when they were kings. And now they have brought the pride back.
When he walked out at Old Trafford yesterday at the back of the line-up to make his return for United more than 18 years after his debut, he was there to win a game against ordinary opposition but he was also there to act as a salve for all the years of hurt and mediocrity that have followed the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson.
That, presumably, was why United owner Avram Glazer felt able to visit the stadium on a match day for the first time in two years and watch a game. Ronaldo scores goals and he also silences opposition. Whether or not he still has what it takes to help United to the league title remains to be seen but, in public relations terms, his signing has been a masterstroke.
There is one important exception to that. During the game, the Level Up feminist group flew a banner over Old Trafford, that carried the message ‘Believe Kathryn Mayorga’, in support of a woman who says she was sexually assaulted by Ronaldo at a Las Vegas hotel in 2009. Two years ago, US prosecutors said Ronaldo, who denies the claims, would not face charges. Level Up said they wanted to ‘end the culture of silence around abuse from the football community’.
The last time Ronaldo wore United’s colours, the club was only a year removed from winning the Champions League against Chelsea in Moscow in 2008. They still had two league titles left in them. They had not yet been overwhelmed by the hegemony of Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool. But the years since 2013 have been all about loss. Ronaldo has been brought back to banish loss.
The thing with Ronaldo and football is that he smells like victory. He is the closest thing to certainty in football. He always has been. Messi is easier on the eye and the darling of aesthetes everywhere but, if you want certainty, if you want the job done, Ronaldo is the man. He has become the personification of victory.
And even if he is 36 now and even if there will be more difficult opponents, Ronaldo has lost neither his sense of occasion nor his instinct for goal. Not content with his tap-in on the stroke of half-time, he stepped up again when Newcastle had the impudence to equalise.
The visitors’ goal had come 11 minutes after the interval when Miguel Almiron turned beautifully away from his marker deep in his own half and hurtled forwards. He squared the ball for Allan SaintMaximin, who pushed it into the path of Javier Manquillo and he lashed it past David de Gea.
Ronaldo was not discouraged. aged. This was still going to be his story. He knew that. And d when Luke Shaw burst forward six minutes after the Newcastle equaliser, he played the ball to Ronaldo as he raced down the inside left channel. Ronaldo took the ball in his stride, eased away from Isaac Hayden and drilled his is shot through the legs of Woodman. His words from m last week seemed even more pertinent. ‘I’m not here for a vacation,’ he had said. ‘I’m here to win again.’
Old Trafford was beside itself. The years rolled away. It could have been 2003 again, when Ronaldo first graced this stage.
For a second it seemed as if Rio Ferdinand was in defence, just as he was that day, Roy Keane in midfield alongside Paul Scholes, with Ryan Giggs on the wing. This was the kind of moment that explained why the Manchester Evening News had devoted a 20-page pull-out to Ronaldo’s second coming yesterday.
What days they were and how United fans have mourned their passing. But Ronaldo’s arrival, more than anything that has happened since Ferguson’s retirement, has allowed them to dream that those days may be
returning. retu Bruno Fernandes Fern scored a beautiful beaut third and Jesse Lingard a clinical fourth but this was indisputably Ronaldo’s day.
He stayed on until the bitter end, of course, and took the plaudits of the crowd as he walked towards the tunnel. Time rolled backwards again and the memories flooded over everyone who was here the first time around. The kid, impossibly upright and confident and poised, standing on the touchline with his socks hitched up over his knees, preparing for his Manchester United debut against Bolton Wanderers and bewitching the crowd and his opponents with his mesmerising stepovers.
Now he is back. Now he is scoring again. Now United are top of the league again. For how long, nobody knows. He is not a young man any more and other defences will be less accommodating than
Newcastle’s and he represents the past more than the future and City, Liverpool and Chelsea all have formidably strong squads.
But this was not a day for caveats. This was a day for the embrace of old certainties. And as fans streamed away over the footbridge that crosses the railway line, the strains of the old song rose up to meet them. ‘Viva Ronaldo,’ the supporters emerging from the Stretford End sang, ‘Viva Ronaldo, running down the wing, hear United sing, Viva Ronaldo.’