He wasn’t on the scoresheet that day, but his dribbling skills and ability to read the game had already caught Sir Alex’s eye. It was the senior Man U players who clinched the decision for him.
On the bus and plane ride home, they badgered their manager — no mean feat given his legendary temper — to sign the teenager. They were pushing at an open door; with the team’s celebrated no. 7, David Beckham, headed for Real Madrid, Man U needed a comparable replacement fast.
Even before he proved himself on the pitch, Ronaldo, sporting a kooky hairstyle and ear studs, made headlines, with Man U paying Sporting CP £12.4 million, a record-breaking sum at the time. Rivals Liverpool and Arsenal, also in the race, dropped out, saying they valued the player at about a quarter that sum. The rest was not just history for Man U — which went on to win three more Premier League titles and one Champions League trophy with him — but for Ronaldo, too. He bagged the first of his five Ballon d’Or awards before going on to a stellar career in Real Madrid and Juventus. He drew a slavish fan following, not just from the teams he represented but neutral and opposition fans as well. Who will forget how the entire stadium stood up to applaud his bicycle kick goal in the 2018 Champions League match against Juventus?
Now, as he hangs up his studs from international football at the ripe age of 41, older heads will judge his retirement as long overdue. Indeed, younger fans who never had the privilege of watching CR7, as his fans called him, in his prime would have wondered what the fuss was all about had they watched his dismal performance in the recent World Cup. Where his great rival Lionel Messi walked and jinked around opposition defenders for Argentina, Ronaldo was a shadow of himself, unable to execute those incredible jumps that earned him the record for the most headed goals in football history (158) or make those darting runs into the box to score the 985 goals of his career. Yet just 10 years before, he powered Portugal to a Uefa Euro trophy, the nation’s first major tournament title, with three goals (all critical ones) and two assists. In the final against France, he was forced off with knee injury after a cynical tackle. But in a show of inspired captaincy he ran up and down the sidelines — which his manager, marooned in a mandatory technical area, could not do — bellowing instructions and encouragement to his team until a little-known substitute called Eder drove in a goal from a distance to win Portugal the match.
Retiring from international football within a month of each other, fans will long squabble over whether Messi or Ronaldo are entitled the “Greatest of All Time” (GOAT) accolade. As with the Roger Federer versus Rafael Nadal debate in tennis, this is a pointless exercise. One scored more goals (Ronaldo: 985; Messi: 937). The other had more assists (Messi: 428; Ronaldo: 261). One had more Ballon D’Ors (Messi: eight; Ronaldo: five) … and so on and so forth. But as with Federer and Nadal, to reduce Messi and Ronaldo’s careers to stats is to do them a disservice. Both gave fans hours of sheer delight and both contributed to the development of football as we know it in unique ways.
Much has been written about how Messi, who retired on October 6 at age 39, conserved his energy by walking between 40 and 60 per cent per match. Ronaldo represented the new age of iron discipline and fitness that is demanded of top level footballers. Where Diego Maradona, drank and drugged his way through a dazzling career at the age of 33 (though it was over long before that), Ronaldo ate and drank with the fastidiousness of a fashion model. As Sir Alex admiringly wrote in his book Leading, as Ronaldo aged, he kept himself underweight in the interests of agility and speed. Though he would occasionally be photographed with his arm around a “young lady” (Sir Alex’s words) in a night club, he drank only water and slept early.
If there was a difference between the two greats, it was in their lifestyles. Where Messi has a burnished reputation as a family man ever faithful to his childhood sweetheart, Ronaldo has been dogged by allegations of rape; his attempts to pay for the victim’s silence did not enhance his personal standing. The latter’s contract with the shady Saudi club Al Nassr, which includes influencer fees quite apart from how he performs on the pitch, and a Nike sponsorship deal ensures that he will out-earn Messi by several millions. That, too, is a feature of modern football superstardom. This generation of emerging greats will stand on their shoulders.
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