Is this really how the great CR7’s career is going to end? Cristiano Ronaldo has signed away the future of his top-flight footballing career for a massive payday as he officially signed for Al-Nassr on a 3-year, $200M+ contract.
First off, let me just say that the financial aspects of this deal are utterly insane.
Paying a soon-to-be 38-year-old $200M+ to kick a football around with a bunch of players who wouldn’t even make it in the Championship is not only insane, but also a very unsettling precedent for the future of football.
If clubs like Al-Nassr, who are essentially run by Saudi Arabian oligarchs, princes, kings, or a mixture of the three, can pay aging, declining superstars $200M+, then what can they pay for young global superstars like Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland?
Sure, the prospect of Champions League football will never be realized in the Middle East as there’s no way UEFA would allow that to happen, but with FIFA president Gianni Infantino practically in bed with every Gulf State’s head of state and the organizing body is actively looking to redevelop the FIFA Club World Cup, a battle between the Middle East and Europe over football’s brightest stars may be brewing.
Nonetheless, the big story is how far from grace Cristiano Ronaldo has fallen in such a short period of time.
Just six months ago, Cristiano Ronaldo was being shopped around by his agent Jorge Mendes to all of the huge clubs of Europe as he was dead set on leaving Manchester United after one of the worst seasons in both his and the club’s history in terms of team standings.
Personally, Ronaldo had another great year as he finished with 18 goals in 30 Premier League games (3rd overall in the league that season) and 24 goals in all competitions to lead United in scoring, though the tragic loss of his infant son was a massive blow to any joy he may have felt from his personal achievements that year.
Flashforward to the start of the 2022/23 season, he literally fell off a cliff as his goal scoring dried up, his fitness was not up to par, Manchester United were getting humiliated by the likes of Brighton and Brentford, and new manager Erik ten Hag needed to get a reaction out of his new team. How did he do it? Well, we all know that answer to that as he benched Ronaldo and set the great CR7 down this path of career humiliation.
Still, I hate to say it, but it is now clear that Erik ten Hag was right to bench Ronaldo and then sanction his release after the Piers Morgan interview dropped before the World Cup. It’s an unfortunate truth that something in Ronaldo last season was forever lost in the summer months, but you can’t beat Father Time.
He’ll always catch up to us.
And he caught up to Ronaldo this season as the megastar failed to impress both Erik ten Hag and Portugal manager Fernando Santos, resulting in CR7 getting benched for Portugal at the World Cup.
I wish Ronaldo and ten Hag could have put their differences aside and worked to bring United its first trophy since the early Jose Mourinho days, but that was not to be. Their relationship was always doomed to fail given the vast differences in their personalities and preferred styles of play.
Perhaps Ronaldo can resurrect his career after a few years in Saudi Arabia like Zlatan Ibrahimovic was able in the MLS, though I wouldn’t bet on it. The end of CR7 as we once knew him seems to have finally happened, which is a great shame for all football fans.
Images Source: Featured Image: (Wikimedia Creative Commons License/Author: Анна Нэсси)(Анна Нэсси, CC BY-SA 3.0 GFDL, via Wikimedia Commons)
