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.