Selfish Ronaldo only cares about Ronaldo
Carlo Garganese
- 10 Jul 2022 17:00 BST
- 4 min read
Ever since the news broke just over a week ago that Cristiano Ronaldo plans to quit Manchester United this summer, part of the narrative has been focused around the Portuguese superstar leaving his club high and dry.
It has been suggested by some sections of the media that Ronaldo left it too late telling Man Utd he wanted to leave just days before pre-season and a tour to Asia and Australia.
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In truth, Man Utd had and have the best part of two months to find a replacement for Ronaldo.
However, it could be argued that many of Europe’s best strikers will already have been bought or negotiations will be well under-way with other clubs.
It’s also a big blow to Man Utd’s image and hopes to attract other big-name players when Ronaldo is jumping ship suddenly in July.
What will Frenkie de Jong think when he is already unsure over leaving Barcelona for a fallen giant who are not in the Champions League?
But what Ronaldo has done to United this summer pales in comparison to what he did to Juventus in the summer of 2021.
A year ago, Juventus sold Ronaldo to Manchester United just four days before the end of the market.
This came after Cristiano suddenly demanded to be sold in the final week of the transfer window.
Juventus were left with no time at all to find a replacement. They panicked into re-signing Moise Kean in a disastrous deal on loan with a €31 million obligation to buy.
The Bianconeri found themselves hopelessly light-weight in attack during the first half of the campaign, falling way out of the Scudetto race.
They took just two points from their first four Serie A games and never really recovered throughout the 2021-22 season.
Ronaldo’s 100-plus goals scored in three years for Juventus were not easy to replace without any proper planning.
It took until the arrival of Dusan Vlahovic in January from Fiorentina for a fee of up to €80m for Juventus to possess a natural goalscorer at the club again.
The late timing of Ronaldo’s push to leave Juventus is something that upset many people in Turin.
“It’s normal that on August 28, three days before the end of the transfer market, you don’t have the possibility to replace him,” Juventus coach Max Allegri complained.
“If he had left a month earlier, perhaps the club would have had the opportunity to work in a different way. It’s just a question of the market.”
Former captain Giorgio Chiellini, who left Juventus this summer on a free transfer to join Los Angeles FC, added: “Ronaldo left on 28 August, it would have been better for us if he had left earlier.
“We paid something for it, a little bit of a shock, we paid something for it in terms of points. If he had left earlier we would have had time to prepare better.”
🗣: “Ronaldo left on 28 August, it would have been better for us if he had left earlier. We paid something for it, a little bit of a shock, we paid something for it in terms of points. If he had left earlier we would have had time to prepare better.”
[Chiellini / @DAZN_IT] pic.twitter.com/INSmt8zi6k— Bianconeri Zone (@BianconeriZone) October 21, 2021
In the end, Juventus paid dearly for the chaos that followed Ronaldo’s hasty exit.
They finished fourth for the second successive season, winning no trophies and earning less points than they even did under the tenure of the much-maligned Andrea Pirlo in 2020/21.
In the Champions League, they were humiliatingly dumped out of the competition by Villarreal in the last-16 after losing 3-0 at home in the second leg, 4-1 on aggregate.
While there are many deep-rooted causes for the crisis that Juventus have found themselves in over the last two years , Ronaldo’s actions a year ago certainly exacerbated these problems further.
Not so much his decision to leave – as in the long-term it will probably be good for Juventus, just as it will be for Man Utd – but the manner in which it happened.
Luckily for Man Utd, they have much more time than Juventus did to get their house in order before the new season begins.
