A professional example in itself. The summer of 2022 has allowed us to finally know the true dimension of Cristiano Ronaldo: absolute selfishness. A total self-referentiality in relation to which everything else is detail. Including companies that pay him heavily, e.g the teams that volunteered received, at best, a gesture of condescension.
All of that had been clear enough by then the three-year spell at Juventus that ended abruptly and moodily without the Juventus club deriving from his performance what he expected: Victory in the Champions League. And now the scene is imitated disparagingly Manchester. Where this 37-year-old with a one-year contract still running for 29 million euros net a year he throws a tantrum because he wants to play in the Champions League. As if it were his divine right. And forgetting that if the Red Devils don’t deny it, it’s also for his faults that he couldn’t give the team the contribution the team expected. What the team and club expected of him was that trophies would arrive thanks to his contribution. What else do you take to make such an expensive, lumbering footballer for the dressing room and bring forward in old age?
But nothing, for Manchester United the 2021/22 season was over with CR7 in the team zero title: 6th in Premier League, eliminated in FA Cup fourth round, eliminated in League Cup third round, eliminated in Champions League round of 16. And it is on that last number, failure in Europe’s most important club cup, that we must dwell.
The Portuguese achieved the same (modest) result wearing the Red Devils shirt as he had in the last two Juventus seasons. In Turin he snorted and was quarreled as if to suggest that the squad provided by the club was not up to par his personal potential. But then he got the same result in Manchester a team with very different potentials. Humbly finishing an adventure made possible thanks to a result obtained before his arrival (Champions League qualification). Because here’s the point: Without CR7 Manchester United had secured a place in the Champions League, with CR7 they missed the target. But he throws a tantrum because he wants to play it. A contemptuous escape from reality and professional responsibility.
And it is precisely on the subject of professional responsibility that we must come back for some reflection and to say a few words of truth. In recent years, CR7’s professional conscientiousness to keep fit, exercise more than others, go beyond the burdens has been promoted in every way. demanded by technicians and coaches, even subjected to cryotherapy at home to get rid of fatigue faster. And no one doubted that he did all of this just for himself, not for the companies that have swooned over the years to pay for him.
The truth is that when we talk about Cristiano Ronaldo we have to refer to a single football multinational, which has a joint venture relationship with football clubs. He only has to break numbers and records for himself. Trophies, personal awards, new records, all numbers that often don’t match the scores of the teams he plays on. CR7 enjoys and triumphs. His teams pay, sacrificing much of the balance to his selfishness (The penalties are all his, and in large numbers the free-kicks from the edge of the box as well) but then they might win what they would have won without him and lose trophies with him on the field that they would have lost without him and saved.
Symbolic of this gap is Juventus’ final year of militancy, 2020-21: he wins the Serie A top scorer for the first and only time, Juventus is on the field with him, breaking the cycle of 9 consecutive league titles. And after he walked away and slammed the door, Allegri’s team wins a Champions League spot once the championship begins, while Manchester United stays on the field with him.
Now that he’s on his feet to play in Europe’s top competition, Cristiano Ronaldo hasn’t even had the time to realize that no one among the big European clubs wants him anymore. Not even Manchester United themselves, their new coach Ten witch He’d dismissed him kindly and made it clear that his team and the dressing rooms would be happy to do without someone like that. But now the Red Devils must keep the point: CR7 is an employee of Manchester United, not Manchester United an employee of CR7. And Ten Hag gets in line. If you really need to keep it pink, you’ll keep it. And maybe to his great delight he plays in the Europa League.
As for him, he wouldn’t even have ruled out the possibility of playing at Atlético Madrid. Where the Colchoneros fans after his madridista past and They immediately vetoed the vulgar gesture following the Juventus Atlético hat-trick in 2019. He could also consider Sporting Portugal, the team he grew up with and says he wants to end his career. There they enable him to play in the Champions League. But the salary should be cut by at least 80%. Forget it. Because he wants everything, and above all he wants everything for himself. It’s always been like this, and it got worse as we got older. What a bad thing not to have a sense of the limit.