Cristiano Ronaldo - Much Ado About Al Nassr

The White Pele said:
I think this Saudi move could turn ugly within a few months once the reality bites.

It seems to me that this transfer is driven by ego. He couldn’t accept the “disrespect” of not being a guaranteed starter at Manchester United and reacted in a way that made his position at the club untenable. Then, from the limited options available to him, with seemingly no big European club interested, the option that was least damaging to his ego was to go to Saudi because of the money involved and being able to spin the angle of achieving everything he wanted in European football.

But if it’s ego and legacy that drives him this ego boost will last only a matter of weeks. For now we will hear about “Ronaldo earns £x per second” and “Ronaldo sells out stadiums, increases followers, clicks” etc which is all great for the brand but in footballing terms he will become an irrelevance very quickly with European club football back in full swing.

It doesn’t really matter how many goals he scores in Saudi, they will likely be dismissed as “stat-padding” by most and what would be more damaging for Ronaldo’s image and may even be more likely is that he doesn’t light it up in terms of goals. He will be adjusting to a different environment, a different standard of football, a different standard of team-mate whilst being a stratospheric presence in the team and league which brings its own pressure. All this at a time when he is searching for his own form and confidence and soon to turn 38. If he doesn’t stand out in the Saudi league then the football world will consider him finished and effectively in retirement. There is no shame in this for a 38 year old but this is not an end Ronaldo wanted or has planned for.

Within weeks he could be at best an irrelevance and at worst an internet meme. With Ronaldo being so driven by brand, legacy, ego how long would he accept this for?

Without the footballing relevance, all he will have then is the money (and it’s obviously astronomical figures we are talking about here) but he was already super-rich and I’m not sure what happiness more sports cars or mansions will bring him in the short-term when he and his family have to spend the next 3 years in a country and culture they probably would not have otherwise chosen.

There are other factors too. I’m not sure what the plan is for Ronaldo Jr’s footballing development but this has always seemed to be something personally important to Cristiano and the brand. You would imagine that Europe was the best place for that to continue.

How Ronaldo adapts to this new reality will be interesting but it will be very humbling for his ego and we’ve seen in recent months that this does not always end well. If it did turn sour quickly I’m not sure what his exit strategy would be in a culture that reacts to public disrespect very differently than he is used to.

It is sad but also amusing that in the last weeks he has probably had the realisation that his best option was to stay at United and focus on the basics of playing his way back into form at a resurgent club fighting on four fronts. An option that he set in flames in 90 minutes of a poorly advised interview with Piers Morgan.

He always wanted to finish at the top. He surrendered his opportunity to do so with his misassumption that in football he could always decide his own path.
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Called it
 
jm99 said:
I don't think that's possible for him. I remember that story evra told about how ronaldo lost at ping pong at the club then went home and practiced constantly until he was better than rio or something. The thing that made him such a great player is likely the same thing that won't let him accept his decline
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Yeh its almost like everyone could see this, except himself. The thing which makes him so special/successful in the past, also leads to his downfall.

But who knows, maybe he could still push himself to score some more goals there? Didn't he score avg a goal per game in Saudi league though? Maybe he could eventually reach 900 goals milestone to claim another great achievement before calling it a day. Maybe thats not a very bad ending for him. Anyway, my take is, he should just stay there until he is done with his contract, and retired there. His legs are long gone and everyone could see it, he shouldn't fancy another come back to Europe.
 
RedRonaldo said:
Yeh its almost like everyone could see this, except himself. The thing which makes him so special/successful in the past, also leads to his downfall.

But who knows, maybe he could still push himself to score some more goals there? Didn't he score avg a goal per game in Saudi league though? Maybe he could eventually reach 900 goals milestone to claim another great achievement before calling it a day. Maybe thats not a very bad ending for him. Anyway, my take is, he should just stay there until he is done with his contract, and retired there. His legs are long gone and everyone could see it, he shouldn't fancy another come back to Europe.
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Tbh at 200m a year, anyone suggesting he should just retire is out of their mind. Even if you had to play at walking pace and couldn't score a single goal, who would give up 4m a week.

Although maybe it's gone the other way, he's gotten this extra money and it doesn't make as much difference as he thought it would and he's willing to cut his wages significantly for one last season in europe
 
Unam333 said:
He won't go there as he is persona non grata due to rape allegations.
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Had forgotten about it.

In that case, well... it's just better to see where he ends up than to speculate.

I thought that as a league, MLS would fit him at this stage in his career. But guess it's a mute point now.
 
Adisa said:
Retire with dignity Ronnie.
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Would you, if you were getting nearly 4m a week to continue? I suppose it's hard to say when you're already rich like him, but completing a 2 and a half year contract would be enough money to buy a football club (probably not one high in the Premier league but a decent size club, Newcastle went for 300m)
 
jm99 said:
Would you, if you were getting nearly 4m a week to continue? I suppose it's hard to say when you're already rich like him, but completing a 2 and a half year contract would be enough money to buy a football club (probably not one high in the Premier league but a decent size club, Newcastle went for 300m)
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Was going to say something about him being rich as all hell and raking in £40-50m per year in sponsorships, but having someone shovel £4m per week into your pockets on top of that, to walk around on the pitch in a joke of a league, is a pretty sweet deal.
 
This circus will continue until he finally realises what an asshole he is. It might be some time yet.
 
Halftrack said:
Was going to say something about him being rich as all hell and raking in £40-50m per year in sponsorships, but having someone shovel £4m per week into your pockets on top of that, to walk around on the pitch in a joke of a league, is a pretty sweet deal.
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Yeah, I could understand saying to retire if it was still the same wages he was getting here in Saudi, even though that's still an absolute fortune, but he earns a years salary here in 7 weeks there, and he was the highest paid player in the league here, and he won't have any taxes. He'd have to be mad to retire instead of keep playing, fair enough if he took a huge pay cut to come to Europe for a season, but to just retire rather than play once a week and make that kind of money would be such a stupid decision
 
He almost destroyed our season; he diminished any chance Portugal had in the WC; and now he is failing to a poor league. If he had retired after the WC, he could have saved some dignity. But now he will be forever remembered as a greedy, whining baby.
 
Luke1995 said:
Had forgotten about it.
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Case was dismissed last year (and he was reimbursed for legal fees earlier this year). So, he probably won't be arrested if he goes to the MLS. Unless he goes on another of his phone destroying/kid attacking rampages, of course.
 
RedRocket9908 said:
Newcastle need players with Champions League expiriance for next season and they currently have very few of those so why not Ronaldo on a freebie, also the thousands of Newcastle shirts with Ronaldo 7 on and all the other Ronaldo merch that they would undoubtedly sell will help towards balancing the books and avoiding issues with FFP this summer.
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Overstated plus it would be all about him so would be detrimental.
 
RedRocket9908 said:
If he is leaving Al Nassar I think Newcastle are a highly likely destination for him now they have realistically confirned Champions League football for next season, I think Newcastle would be foolish to not at least consider signing him up.
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They would be dumbfecks to sign him. They have great team and work ethic, last thing they need is some narcissist destroying it.
 
Newcastle are all about bringing the match to their opponents with a high work-rate, why does anyone think that a lazy old man who can't or isn't willing to run anymore would be a good fit for that?

Getting Ronaldo would set them back. If they got a player like Osimhen, on the other hand, they'd terrorize the league. Let's hope that doesn't happen.
 
led_scholes said:
He almost destroyed our season; he diminished any chance Portugal had in the WC; and now he is failing to a poor league. If he had retired after the WC, he could have saved some dignity. But now he will be forever remembered as a greedy, whining baby.
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To be fair, and it is difficult to be fair to him, he is averaging a goal a game in the league there. Not really failing as such.

Of course he'd have got a lot more than that in his prime but he's still got the best goals to games ratio over there.
 
Chipper said:
To be fair, and it is difficult to be fair to him, he is averaging a goal a game in the league there. Not really failing as such.

Of course he'd have got a lot more than that in his prime but he's still got the best goals to games ratio over there.
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I m sure with the money they are paying him, they would probably expect hat tricks.
 
RedRocket9908 said:
If he is leaving Al Nassar I think Newcastle are a highly likely destination for him now they have realistically confirned Champions League football for next season, I think Newcastle would be foolish to not at least consider signing him up.
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:lol: :lol: :lol:
 
Newcastle signing him means one less club to worry about next season. I'm all for it.
 
Luke1995 said:
Had forgotten about it.

In that case, well... it's just better to see where he ends up than to speculate.

I thought that as a league, MLS would fit him at this stage in his career. But guess it's a mute point now.
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There’s no team in the MLS that would have him for footballing reasons, because none of them can afford to play with a goalhanger. The technical level is lower in MLS than Italy, so he’d be forced to run around and graft more, with poorer service. Defenders would absolutely crush him, too. He wouldn’t like it one bit in the MLS. That said, the marketing potential is still there, but he’d have to go okay for Philadelphia Union or Toronto FC, because any serious team wouldn’t go near him. Bale at LAFC barely got play, for instance, and he still had plenty to give, whereas Ronaldo looks broken.
 
led_scholes said:
He almost destroyed our season; he diminished any chance Portugal had in the WC; and now he is failing to a poor league. If he had retired after the WC, he could have saved some dignity. But now he will be forever remembered as a greedy, whining baby.
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To be fair, he has already been relegated to the bench in Portugal's last 2 games in knockout stage. Can't really blame a bench/sub player on losing the WC.
 
Howe was asked before and he bluntly denied it. Even less chance they sign him after what he has shown in Saudi. Unless they turn the club into PSG and go over the manager's head but can't see that happening either.
 
Wing Attack Plan R said:
There’s no team in the MLS that would have him for footballing reasons, because none of them can afford to play with a goalhanger. The technical level is lower in MLS than Italy, so he’d be forced to run around and graft more, with poorer service. Defenders would absolutely crush him, too. He wouldn’t like it one bit in the MLS. That said, the marketing potential is still there, but he’d have to go okay for Philadelphia Union or Toronto FC, because any serious team wouldn’t go near him. Bale at LAFC barely got play, for instance, and he still had plenty to give, whereas Ronaldo looks broken.
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Sure. Thanks for the insight.

Maybe Japan then ? Some former star strikers who moved there did relatively well (Thinking of Villa, Torres, Podolski) - I think Ronaldo is older than they were back then though.
 
Ronaldo goes to the hospital for his daughter's appendix operation

The media 'Ronaldo wants to leave Al Nassr'

They did the exact same thing back in July, 90% of these football outlets are a joke
 
Hope he joins another premiere league club, especially one that is contestor for top 4. One less team to worry about
Whoever sign him deserve the shit show that comes after.
 
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