Cristiano Ronaldo made his first Man Utd debut 18 years ago and it was a clear foreboding of great things to come as he absolutely stole the thunder against Bolton on that fateful day.
The genesis of that 2003/04 season was in many ways epochal for Manchester United as not only had the Reds’ flamboyant wizard David Beckham gone with the wind in the summer, only to be replaced by a teenage winger sharing the same penchant for outlandish haircuts – and nobody had any inkling what to expect.
Amazingly, by the time the final whistle had been blown on the opening day of the season at Old Trafford, there was no longer any mention of Beckham, who had almost immediately been consigned to the past, reduced to only a fleeting memory. Cristiano Ronaldo had made his debut, starting on the bench against Bolton Wanderers and only came on for the final 30 minutes, which was more than sufficient for United to score thrice and for the 18-year-old Portuguese winger to steal the show, razzling and dazzling with a mesmerizing repertoire of tricks, flicks, step-overs and brilliant sprints that had everyone spellbound.
This Saturday, 6,602 days after he first stepped on the pitch for United, Ronaldo will be back. The 18-year-old winger of slight-build, dazzling yet unpredictable even then, has since morphed into a statuesque 36-year-old with one of the surest finishing touches in the world and an Adonis-like physique to match. The player has long transitioned fully since that Saturday on August 16, 2003 that Ronaldo introduced himself to United fans as a player who scripted his own plays on the pitch.
Ronaldo dominated the headlines that day when United had beaten Bolton 4-0, and Sam Allardyce was in the opposite dugout that day and even before kick-off he’d been warned what to expect from Sir Alex Ferguson.
“I’d had a cup of tea with Sir Alex before the game in his office and he said, ‘this lad, he’s good’,” Allardyce told Sky Sports News this week.
“Of course, we saw him come on as a sub. I think we were losing at the time and he was playing against a young full-back called Nicky Hunt.
“I felt sorry for Nicky when he came off. (Ronaldo) came on and just dazzled. I said to Sir Alex, ‘you look like you’ve got a real player there for Manchester United’.
“It’s how quickly he developed – I think that wasn’t just the management style but also the players that were at United moulded Ronaldo, stopped him doing all those step-overs every time and started to teach him when and where to do it.”
As the crowds filed out of Old Trafford after the game, the gist of the conversations all around M16 centered around how good the new lad was. Ferguson himself was certainly most impressed and it’s only fitting that he will be in the stands to watch the return of Ronaldo this weekend.
“It was a marvellous debut,” Ferguson had enthused in 2003. “I thought the pace was too slow in the first half and I knew Cristiano would add penetration.”
Ronaldo clearly made a habit of that during his time at United, amassing 118 goals before the move to Real Madrid. Now, he again has the opportunities to add more to his United tally. It would hardly be a surprise if goal number 119 arrived on Saturday given his sense of timing on the big stage.