The situation
Cristiano Ronaldo offered his services to Juventus with a strong pay cut. The information is far from reliable, but the idea is interesting. Could Ronaldo and Juventus help each other? Both sides are experiencing a certain crisis, and the renewal of the union could be saving, or even more destructive. As you know, Ronaldo left the club a year ago, on August 27, moving to Manchester United. The results of the move are unusual: at the end of the season, Manchester fell to sixth place, although before that it was in second place, and Cristiano seemed to score 18 goals and gave 3 assists, but the fans did not become so loved again. Old questions are being raised again about the individualism of the player and the leadership, which does not take this into account and does not build a team taking into account the requirements for the strengths of the Portuguese. Nevertheless, Ronaldo is still a person who, regardless of the team, partners, age, will score his 15 goals. The rest is the problem of management, coach and team. He will do his job. Juventus has not changed dramatically since the departure of the Portuguese, but there have been a few changes. First of all, the coach changed, who had already worked with Ronaldo and under whom Juventus gave the most successful of three seasons to Cristiano in Italy. Given the upcoming reinforcements of Turin, it seems that with lower expectations for the club and for Ronaldo himself, the renewal of the union could be more beneficial. But the second change already affects the player directly – young Dusan Vlahovic plays in his position, in whom 80 million euros have been invested and who will be the center of the new Juventus in the coming years. Such an investment is unlikely to allow the coach to experiment with the introduction of Ronaldo to the detriment of Vlahovic. Hence the main question for Juventus in such an alleged situation – could Vlahovic and Ronaldo play together on the edge? The answer is unequivocal – no. As described in the previous post, Dusan is a very dependent player who does not know how to press. And Cristiano is just a strong individualist who creates quality, but who also needs to be covered. Even Allegri is unlikely to combine equally non-pressing and requiring the creation of a star and retire. There can be no interest from Juventus in this return, as the club will not be able to offer the place on the field where Ronaldo feels best. Then is such a game worth the candle? now let’s look at a similar option from Cristiano Ronaldo himself. The player is not getting younger, on the contrary, his performance in comparison with him, the real and Juventus models themselves will no longer be able to repeat. Speed, technique, physics – these indicators are still high, albeit not as much as before. Ronaldo understands this and already under Rangnick tried to rebuild the vector of his game more on partners than on himself.
The details
This affected the scoring activity, sometimes Ronaldo had droughts, but at the same time the team actively scored. From his side, the Juventus project looks more preferable, because he is familiar with the coach, familiar with the partners, and the competition in Italy looks much more preferable than in England. What do the fans themselves think? Departure from the club in the last days of the transfer window has somewhat tarnished the reputation of Ronaldo, but not so much that he was not welcomed in Turin with the same honors. The player is remembered for his winning goals and respect for the fans and the club. But with all due respect to the Portuguese genius, it is worth recognizing that this union definitely has no future for both sides, since both Juventus and Ronaldo took everything possible from this relationship and said goodbye at the right time. The smartest thing to do would probably be to stay in Manchester, try to play with the new manager Ten Hag and his innovative and progressive vision of football, and get the club back in the Champions League – this will further strengthen the love of the local public and shame the naysayers who thought that Ronaldo was interested only yourself, rather than your favorite club.