Will Old Trafford romanticism fill CR7’S craving?
IF the Happiness Index could be applied to football clubs around the world for their transfer window activity in the current transfer window, there is no doubt that record English champions Manchester United would top the charts easily.
Euphoria amongst United’s massive global fanbase reached unprecedented levels at the weekend following the announcement of the return of Cristiano Ronaldo 12 years after his departure for Real Madrid, leading to the club’s website crashing in the aftermath of the historic announcement.
Ronaldo returns to United with the feel good factor already in abundance at Old Trafford in recent weeks following the signing of English attacking ace Jadon Sancho from Borussia Dortmund and the arrival of highly decorated World Cup and multiple UEFA Champions League winning French international centreback Raphael Varane.
However, it could have all ended in tears for United and their legion of fans had Manchester City forged ahead with matching Juventus’ over €30 million valuation of the 36-yearold five time Ballon d’or winner after his agent Jorge Mendes had offered the Cityzens the chance to sign Ronaldo.
Last Friday morning football news outlets across the world reported news of Ronaldo heading back to the English Premier League to reportedly join Manchester City, leaving Man United fans in a spot of bother leading to some taking to social media to disown the Portuguese star.
Although the mooted move to City did not materialise and Ronaldo eventually sealed a fairytale move back to Old Trafford, it is the ‘CR7 to Man City’ angle that was fascinating and created a furore.
For a few hours on Friday the thought of seeing a Red Devils icon clad in the light blue hue of United’s crosstown rivals and the current most dominant side in the Manchester rivalry relegated the euphoria around Sancho and Varane’s acquisitions into a distant memory.
All the focus turned to a social media campaign by United fans centred around “how dare he betray us like this?” They were begging Ronaldo’s former United teammates to plead with him not to join City of all teams, as if he could not make a far worse decision by joining Liverpool instead.
The campaign has clearly worked as United luminaries such as Rio Ferdinand admitted to have spoken to Ronaldo about the implications of moving to United’s direct city rivals, while a phone call from legendary former United boss Sir Alex Ferguson is also said to have helped swing things in the Red Devils’ favour.
However, I did not understand why United fans were kicking up a fuss about Ronaldo reportedly being close to moving to Manchester City, especially in a football world where players are subject to similar transfer activity.
Other United legends including Dennis Law, Peter Schmeichel, Andy Cole, Carlos Tevez and although not a United legend, Owen Hargreaves also made moves to City having turned out for United at various points in their careers.
Tevez’s summer of 2009 move to City, made worse by that taunting “Welcome to Manchester” billboard, was perhaps the most painful of the lot to United fans to date, as he had just helped the club win back to back Premier League titles and played in two successive Champions League finals, winning one.
Football is also littered with examples of players who have turned out for sworn enemies at some point in their careers, including the Brazilian Ronaldinho who played for El Clasico enemies FC Barcelona and Real Madrid and Milan Derby foes Internazionale Milan and AC Milan, although never making a direct move to either rival.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic has cemented his legendary status in the global game as one of the greatest players in recent years, but he did so while unashamedly covering his tattoo riddled torso with the colours of Italy’s three biggest clubs Juventus, Internazionale, AC Millan at various stages of his career.
It might have taken them an age to get over arguably the greatest betrayal of the modern game, but FC Barcelona fans eventually did get over their talisman and captain and former national team skipper, Luis Figo.
The Portuguese did the unthinkable by moving directly to the Blaugrana’s hated rivals Real Madrid in the summer of 2000.
Figo committed the cardinal sin in the eyes of Barcelona fans by moving from Catalonia to the Spanish capital, and it felt like a dagger to their back for the Blaugrana faithful, because he was only 28, at the height of his powers and a symbol of what it meant to play for Barcelona.
To make the betrayal even more profound was that Figo’s move, which he had denied with a straight face just weeks earlier, was engineered to kick off Florentino Perez’s ambitious Galacticos project of signing the world’s best players to turn Los Blancos into Europe’s most dominant force.
Cristiano, on the other hand though still a force of nature and goal machine - would have been moving to City in the twilight of an incomparable career and it comes after having played for two other clubs, Real Madrid and Juventus, since leaving United in 2009.
In that context, then surely it would have lessened the blow and United fans could have learned to live with seeing Ronaldo in City blue.
As much as they can smooch club badges in a symbolic show of loyalty, more than they do their own wives and girlfriends, the reality of the modern game is that elite footballers like Cristiano Ronaldo are not loyal to a football club's badge, they are loyal firstly to money and secondly to whether a club's ambitions matches theirs.
Currently, given a choice to play for the Premier League champions and Champions League runners-up or the Premier League runners up and Europa League runners up, most of the world’s finest players would opt for the former and it would not have been a shock had Ronaldo done so.
With five European Cups on his trophy-laden mantle piece Ronaldo’s burning desire is to add a sixth to this already impressive collection of the famous trophy with the ol’ Big Ears while he sits on five Ballon D’OR crowns, equalling and even surpassing Messi’s record of six also consumes his thinking. Under Josep Guardiola, he would have had the chance to play not just under one of the greatest tactical minds in the history of sport, but also for a manager who yearns in equal measure to win several more Champions League titles.
The romanticism of a return to Old Trafford now obviously ensures a fairytale ending to an illustrious career, but romanticism is no match to the allure of turning out for one of the greatest managers in the game’s history and winning big titles.
Although United showed a marked improvement last season, finishing second to City and reaching the Europa League Final, the club is yet to win a trophy under their affable Norwegian manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
The pressure now rests on the broad shoulders of the returning icon, Ronaldo, to end a nine year long wait for the Premier League title and to bring back to Old Trafford the Champions League for the first time since 2008.