Cristiano Ronaldo pointed to the exit – Newspaper Kommersant No. 196 (7397) of 10/21/2022

The demarche of Cristiano Ronaldo has become the most discussed event of the next round of the English Championship. In Manchester United’s match against Tottenham Hotspur, the five-time Ballon d’Or winner left the bench and the stadium without waiting for the final whistle. According to experts, the incident will accelerate the parting of Cristiano Ronaldo with the Manchester club, which was brewing in the summer, in the plans of the new coach of which Eric ten Hag, the Portuguese legend clearly does not fit.

In one of the central matches of the next round of the championship of England, Manchester United beat Tottenham Hotspur 2-0 at home. It was a very important victory for the Manchester team, who did not perform too smoothly in the starting segment of the season. She allowed them to get closer to the London club, also included in the shortlist of contenders for the championship awards. Now Tottenham Hotspur, third behind Arsenal and Manchester City, are four points ahead of Manchester United.

The hosts showed excellent football in this meeting, but without exception, all British publications were much more interested in the episode, which had nothing to do with what was happening on the field.

In the 89th minute of the game, Cristiano Ronaldo, the main celebrity of Manchester United, who remained in this meeting in the reserve, got up from the bench and went to the tribune rooms.

According to a number of sources, such as The Athletic and The Guardianthe Portuguese only briefly went into the locker room to pick up things, and immediately after that left the Old Trafford arena without waiting for partners.

This is indeed a very loud demarche. Headed In the summer of Manchester United, Dutch coach Erik ten Hag declined to comment after the match, saying that he “did not pay attention” to Ronaldo’s act and would discuss it later. But famous former footballers working as BBC experts – Gary Lineker, Peter Schmeichel, Ashley Williams – appreciated him unambiguously. They all equated Cristiano Ronaldo’s actions with a demonstrative display of “disrespect” towards his team and the public, and also called the player’s behavior “unacceptable”. And Micah Richards suggested that the ideal solution to the “problem of Ronaldo” would be parting with him in the winter transfer window, that is, in January.

In fact, the demarche of Cristiano Ronaldo cannot be considered a very big surprise. Manchester United, which has been in a state similar to a crisis for many years (at least by the standards of the football giant), and is constantly trying to regain the positions lost in the last decade, poached an outstanding Portuguese from Juventus in August 2021, believing that his considerable age (and Ronaldo is already 37) will not prevent him from becoming the leader of the team. The five-time winner of the Golden Ball, based solely on statistics, formally had a good previous season, scoring 24 goals in 38 matches for Manchester. However, the club again did not achieve any success, finishing sixth in the English championship and being eliminated in the opening round of the Champions League. And in the trend of British media resources after the end of the season there were materials that questioned the “positive influence” of 37-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo on the team’s game. The appearance at Manchester United of Erik ten Hag, invited from Ajax, they linked with plans for a radical personnel and stylistic restructuring, in which the Portuguese, who had grown old and lost speed, may not fit.

Ronaldo’s likely exit from Manchester United was relevant almost all summer. The striker warmed it up himself, missing almost all of the club’s pre-season training camp and leading himself as if he no longer connects his future with him.

But Manchester United never sold the veteran to anyone, and the events of the current season proved the rightness of analysts skeptical about him. Essentially, under Eric ten Hague, who demands energy and regular pressure from football players, Cristiano Ronaldo has lost his place as a first-team player. In the ten meetings of the Premier League that have already taken place, he only started twice for Manchester United, and fully played one single match – the one in which Manchester suffered a terrible disaster in August, losing to the modest Brentford with a score of 0:4. And did not use Ronaldo at least as a substitute player entering the field in the end, Erik ten Hag for the second time.

Alexey Dospekhov