The petulant Ronaldo circus has no place in the beautiful game
There is a reason the word team does not have the letter “i”. In a team everyone is supposed to pull in the same direction for the greater cause of the collective. This is a fundamental of team sport that a certain Cristiano Ronaldo is refusing to embrace.
Be it football. Be it rugby. Be it cricket. Even bloody synchronised swimming, for crying out loud.
You name it. If a contribution is required from more than one individual for a particular goal to be attained, everyone must put their shoulder to the wheel.
In this context, the word team becomes an acronym for “together everyone achieves more”.
Not so in Ronaldo’s self -serving world of petulance, where everything revolves around his nether region.
No-one in their right mind can dispute that the career of this great footballer has been phenomenal.
The man is a mean machine who has scored a glut of goals and broken records with immaculate ease. What other players can only dream of doing, Ronaldo would pull off in jaw-dropping fashion. He boasts a catalogue of super-amazing feats.
As a senior member of the collective, an experienced leader in the dressing room, he should be at the forefront of promoting professionalism and lead the way inculcating good sporting behaviour.
Not only Manchester United players look up to him. He is idolised by millions across the globe, young and old, simply because of his superior skills. He is cut from the cloth of the special ones.
But Ronaldo is vile. He misleads by example. The world must revolve around him or he throws his toys out the cot, as his latest stunt confirms.
United boss Erik ten Hag was left with no choice but to banish him to temporary oblivion and exclude him from the squad that took on Chelsea at Stamford Bridge last night.
Even making him train with the under-21s was a risky call because the petulant Portuguese could turn it into a lesson in how not to behave.
He has had to deal with heartwrenching pain. Losing a child is one of the most traumatic things any parent can experience. The outpouring of emotion from across the sporting world and ordinary folk across the world reflected the reverence in which he is held.
The relationship between club and player has reached breaking point. It is a shame that one who, pumped up by youthful exuberance, elevated his name to international icon in his first spell with the Red Devils, who went on to make more magic with Real Madrid, is transforming into a sorry excuse of a human being.
These spoilt brat, egocentric antics he has pulled since his return for a second spell at United are soiling his legacy. He came to a great club and made the Theatre of Dreams his stage to show the world what a phenomenon he is.
He has been a one-man army of negativity, generating poor vibes. He has dropped a pile of stinkers around Old Trafford that warrants him packing his bags and heading for the exit.
Seeing that no-one in Europe is interested in his services, a team in Saudi Arabia will have no qualms dishing out gazillions of oil dollars to bring Ronaldo to their shores.
In hindsight, United should never have brought him back. He has no respect for his teammates. He keeps flashing a middle finger to the fans. No player is bigger than the club. It is a lesson Kylian Mbappe must learn, given the Ronaldosque tendencies he now and again shows at Paris Saint Germain.
Individual players come and go. Clubs remain as institutions that welcome new players and provide them a platform to display their talent.