The Brooding Malcontent
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By Scott MacLean
We are at the end of an era, watching the titans of sport from the past 20 years come to an end of their careers. Some have already gone, while others chase milestones and career goals against the fading light as the next generation takes over.
Take tennis for one. The era of the Big Three and their 63 Grand Slam titles is all but over. Roger Federer has already slipped into retirement, Rafael Nadal is on the wane and will surely follow soon, and the mystical powers of sheep’s milk cheese can only keep Novak Djokovic going for so long.
Across the Atlantic, LeBron James is no longer the force he was, his speed and power diminished as he plays out his 20th NBA season. Tom Brady retired after the last NFL season, then reversed course to play his 23rd season at age 45; something that may have cost him his marriage to supermodel Gisele Bundchen. And in baseball the two greatest hitters of the past two decades are at the end; Albert Pujols retired after reaching the 700-home run plateau this past season while Miguel Cabrera has just one season left on his current contract.
Perhaps the only icon still firing on all cylinders is ice hockey star Alexander Ovechkin, sitting on 788 goals (and counting) in his pursuit of Wayne Gretzky’s NHL record of 894.
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Then there’s football, and more specifically Cristiano Ronaldo.
There’s no doubting Ronaldo’s place on football’s pantheon of talents, and in the last 20 years only Lionel Messi can match his accomplishments. Five Ballon d’Ors, three times a Premier League winner with Manchester United, two La Ligas with Real Madrid, two Serie A crowns with Juventus, five Champions League successes (one with United, four with Madrid), and a European Championship with Portugal. Only a World Cup – as with Messi – has eluded him.
He’s one of the most recognisable people, much less sports stars, on earth. I mean, how many people under 40 have an airport named in their honour?
He’s also the owner of one of the largest, and perhaps most fragile, egos on earth. And as his abilities and influence have declined his behaviour has become increasingly erratic as he seemingly refuses to believe that Father Time is undefeated, culminating – for now – in this week’s latest broadside at his current employers via those paragons of British media integrity: Piers Morgan and The Sun tabloid.
I am a Manchester United fan, and there is no doubt that bringing an 18-year-old Ronaldo from Sporting Lisbon to Old Trafford was one of the canniest moves of Sir Alex Ferguson’s long managerial stay. It kept the trophies rolling in even as the Roy Keane and “Class of ‘92” era came to an end. The move to Real, even after Ferguson famously declared that he wouldn’t “sell them (Madrid) a virus” marked the end of an era, although Ronaldo himself would go on to even greater heights at the Bernabeu.
Yet, when it emerged that 12 years after he’d left that he’d be returning to United, I shook my head. United were a team that were in transition – if we’re being charitable, disarray fits better – under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. What could a brooding, ageing, malcontent offer a team that needed to find a modern direction?
I was even more incredulous when more of the background came out; that Ronaldo had been sounded out by Manchester City and that Ferguson had inserted himself into events to ensure Ronaldo’s return to Manchester came in red and not blue. It smacked more of avoiding embarrassment and selling shirts than a football decision.
(A brief tangent here: Does any former manager, anywhere, hold more sway over the decisions of their club this long after their retirement than Ferguson does? His influence in recent times seems a lot more of a hindrance than a help.)
Ronaldo did score 18 goals in 30 Premier League outings but United only finished sixth as the club lurched from crisis to crisis, from Solskjaer to interim manager Ralf Rangnick. The latter, who Ronaldo claimed to be completely unaware of, was hardly the sort of name he’d played under in his career, and it showed as his relationship with him and the club became increasingly fractious. And over the summer, facing the prospect of playing Europa rather than Champions League football and under yet another new manager in Dutchman Erik ten Hag he and his agent Jorge Mendes pushed – unsuccessfully – to move on.
So, onto this season where it’s become painfully evident that Ronaldo’s relative lack of mobility and endurance is at odds with Ten Hag’s aggressive high-press style which demands a lot from his forwards when not in possession. That has seen him fall down the pecking order at Old Trafford and made him an even more peripheral figure and saw him commit one of football’s sins when he refused to come on as a substitute late in United’s win over Spurs and instead made an early exit down the tunnel before fulltime. That act, and his previous early departure from a preseason match against Real Sociedad after being substituted at halftime earned him an exile from the first-team squad from which he soon returned, but this latest episode seems like the end, in Manchester at least.
So where next? Ronaldo will never be as good at anything else in his life as he is at football, and he still believes he can play at the highest level of club football. But would anyone want him? His wages at United are enormous and the few clubs that could afford them – even for the few months that remain on his contract – like Bayern Munich, Paris Saint Germain, the Milan pair, or his old homes of Real Madrid and Juventus appear unlikely to want him anywhere near as much as he wants them and the limelight of Champions League football. For their part United – if they were so inclined – could simply have him see out his time twiddling his thumbs; Ronaldo once compared modern football to ‘slavery’, so I wonder what he’d make of that.
Barring a reconciliation that appears unlikely, the best hope for all would appear to be a buyout of his contract. But even then, where would he go? Would his ego let him take small wages somewhere for that Champions League opportunity, or would he still demand top dollar? Beyond the rest of this season what is out there for him? Major League Soccer is a common avenue for aging starts but long-persisting rumours that he would face legal problems if he landed in the US may scupper those before he could consider them. Alternatively, her could he be forced to look east towards the UAE or China where he could bask in the adulation that he so desperately craves one last time before the sun goes down.
Only time will tell.
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