CR7’s legacy planning took a battering in 2022. What next?
When Ronaldo became the first player to score at five World Cups, two days after Argentina opened their 2022 campaign with a shock defeat to Saudi Arabia, he hoped it would be the start of his bid to usurp Lionel Messi forever. Instead, things unravelled irreparably in just a few weeks.
While Messi went on to win the World Cup, Ronaldo found himself dropped by Portugal, eliminated by Morocco, then unwanted by Europe’s top clubs after not so much burning his bridges at Manchester United, as blowing them to smithereens with a barrage of Piers Morgan-loaded HIMARS missiles.
“It’s not the end of my career to come to South Africa,” insisted CR7 upon his arrival at, er, Saudi Arabian side Al Nassr, with a classic Robinho-esque gaffe that probably gave away he wasn’t thrilled to be at his new club with average gates of just 8,000 last season. “In Europe, my work is done,” he continued, flexing as a self-defence mechanism. It was hard to escape the suspicion that Europe had decided it was done with him.
All careers must come to a close, and few are afforded the luxury of a happy ending. Zinedine Zidane literally bowed out with a red card; Diego Maradona had drugs bans in his final years. At 37, football’s King Canute has done an extraordinary job of holding back the ageing process, scoring 66 goals for Portugal since his 30th birthday to set a new international goalscoring record, and taking his Champions League tally to a record 140.
Ronaldo’s mobility no longer
