Ronaldo’s fall-out departure from Juve continues to rumble on with a new report in Italy damning he failed to adhere to important dressing room rules.
An Italian publication, Tuttosport, reports that in Turin, it was a case of one rule for Ronaldo and another for the rest of the squad during his three years in Juve despite the club enjoying success during his first two seasons.
The report further claims that Ronaldo ‘crumbled’ the laws of ‘equality, unity, and humility’ among Juve’s tight-knit squad – something defender Leonardo Bonucci alluded to earlier this week when he insisted, they are playing more like a team without the Portuguese.
prior to Ronaldo’s arrival in 2018, previous first-choice strikers Carlos Tevez, Mario Mandzukic, and Gonzalo Higuain all bought into defending as a team and were flexible in their roles to help Juve win.
Other high-profile arrivals – such as Paul Pogba, Dani Alves and Andrea Pirlo – had no issue with this in the past too. However, Tuttosport say this wasn’t the case with Ronaldo following his £100million switch from Real Madrid.
It is claimed that the veteran forward ‘was never part of the pack’ when it came to defending as a unit and ‘never participated in the defensive phase’.
The report suggests misplaced passes would spark encouragement rather than criticism, but again that wasn’t always the case with the Portuguese superstar.
It is claimed that Ronaldo’s presence affected the team on and off the pitch and was a contributing factor to their poor start of the 2021/22 campaign.
Tuttosport say that ‘cracks’ started to appear in the dressing room, particularly when it came to discipline, and that Ronaldo’s involvement in the starting XI made Juventus less compact and fragile at the back.
Similar claims have already been made of Manchester United since Ronaldo returned over the summer in a £19.7million deal, with manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer having to defend the star’s work-rate recently.
The Italian newspaper do point out that the forward’s attacking qualities can’t be questioned – he scored 101 goals in 134 games – but his lack of defensive effort in terms of tracking back and adapting to the team spirit were reportedly noticed.