The rumbles ensuing from Cristiano Ronaldo’s departure from Juventus have not only continued but have grown in intensity with barbs and invectives from different sectors. Among the first damning new reports in Italy is the one claiming the ‘spoilt superstar’ never adhered at all to the most important rules of mutual respect and decorum in the dressing room, which ultimately continue to expose the basic flaws in his character and his insatiable need for self-aggrandizement due to his overbearing arrogance and sense of self-importance.
It was unfortunately a far-from-ideal case of one rule for Ronaldo and another for everybody else in the squad during his three years in Turin. Italian publication Tuttosport reveal that it was apparently not a case of one size fits all as Ronaldo was claimed to have ‘crumbled’ the laws of ‘equality, unity and humility’ among Juve’s tight-knit squad, which defender Leonardo Bonucci had alluded to earlier this week when he insisted they are playing more like a team now with the Portuguese gone.
Then, aside from the overbearing stance he adopted in the dressing room lording over everyone else, it is further claimed that the veteran forward ‘was never part of the pack’ when it came to defending as a unit and ‘never participated in the defensive phase’ when on the pitch, which are in themselves not something totally unexpected to those familiar with the Portuguese’s strengths and weaknesses.
Before Ronaldo’s much-anticipated arrival in 2018, the earlier influx of first-choice strikers like Carlos Tevez, Mario Mandzukic and Gonzalo Higuain all subscribed to the philosophy of defending as a team and were very pliable in their roles on the pitch for the betterment of the team. This was also the case with other high-profile arrivals like Paul Pogba, Dani Alves and Andrea Pirlo who also had no issues with playing their parts defensively, too.
However, this didn’t apply at all with Ronaldo following his £100million switch from Real Madrid, according to Tuttosport who reported that misplaced passes would elicit encouragement instead of criticism among the players but again never with the Portuguese superstar, who consistently demanded nothing but accuracy from his team-mates in feeding him the passes to enable him to continue being a prolific goal-scoring machine.
Tuttosport say that ‘cracks’ had already started to appear in the dressing room, with special reference to discipline, and that Ronaldo’s involvement in the starting XI made the Old Lady squad less compact and more fragile in defense. The claims are now openly made that Ronaldo’s presence clearly affected the team on and off the pitch and was a contributing factor to their poor start to the new campaign – with the Serie A outfit only winning one of their opening four matches in all competitions as Ronaldo was still on Juve’s books for the first three of those games then prior to his sudden, ninja-like switch to Old Trafford.
Unfortunately for the chest-thumping superstar, similar claims have already surfaced at this early juncture in Manchester United since Ronaldo ‘miraculously’ returned over the summer in a £19.7million deal, a somewhat odd development that some pundits have opted to allege could have been the outcome of some nifty shifting of pawns on the chess board by the Portuguese himself, cleverly manipulating a desperate reaction from Manchester United into making a last-minute bid to wrangle the forward from the supposed clutches of their bitter rivals City.
Tuttosport does point out that the forward’s attacking qualities are not in question – having scored 101 goals in 134 games – but not so his obvious lack of defensive efforts in terms of tracking back and adapting to the overall team spirit.
So the goals will still be forthcoming as expected. And that should come as no surprise as it’s already long been argued by Ronaldo’s detractors that in any team that he features in, everything has to be set up to accommodate him and the way he plays. It’s all-for-one or not-at-all with Ronaldo.
The 36-year-old left the Italian giants on August 31 to return to United, with a deal that was manufactured three games into Juventus’ season. Since his departure, Juve are now finally enjoying a nine-game unbeaten run – triumphing in eight of those fixtures and highlighting their upturn in form post-Ronaldo.
Juventus defender and erstwhile team stalwart Giorgio Chiellini has joined team-mate Leonardo Bonucci in raining on their former colleague and Manchester United superstar Ronaldo’s puffed-up parades at Old Trafford with pointed remarks about the impact the Portuguese striker had on the Italian giants before he left for Old Trafford.
37-year-old Chiellini has claimed that the Manchester United superstar needs a team that ‘plays for him,’ with Bonucci also recently claiming that his presence had harmed the Bianconeri to a certain extent. And the veteran center-back pair have attributed at least some of their current improvement to the fact that Ronaldo is now long gone from Turin.
Chiellini made his thoughts on the five-time Ballon d’Or winner clear after he returned to Old Trafford late in the summer transfer window and Juventus struggled at the start of the season.
“I had already figured out he could leave this summer, because we reached a stage of the working relationship where Cristiano needed new motivation and a team that would play for him,” the defensive stalwart explained.
“When he finds a team like that, he can always be decisive, as he was at Juve too.
“Juventus are beginning a process of renewal and trying to bring the average age down… but it’s fair he [Ronaldo] wanted a team more focused on the present than the future.”
Chiellini has also noted that, despite the re-signing of Moise Kean from Everton, Ronaldo leaving earlier would have given Massimiliano Allegri’s side more time to snap up a replacement.
“Ronaldo left on August 28 and it certainly would’ve been better if he had gone earlier so we could prepare,” he admitted.
“Unfortunately, we paid a price for that.
“It does create a shock to the system and we lost points in the opening games because of that.
“If he’d left on August 1, then we would’ve had time to re-organize and be ready for the start of the season.”
Ronaldo spent three years in Turin and racked up 101 goals in 134 games, winning two Serie A titles but failing to deliver the Champions League which has eluded Juve in the modern era.
Bonucci, who is Chiellini’s center-back parter for both club and country, recently gave his verdict on Ronaldo leaving and challenged the Bianconeri to find the spirit that saw them win seven successive Serie A titles and reach two Champions League finals before CR7 arrived at the Old Lady.
When asked by Sky Sport Italia this week if Juventus are playing more as a team without Ronaldo, Bonucci said: ‘It’s absolutely true. Ronaldo made a choice that we respected.”
Bonucci, who alongside Chiellini helped Italy to win Euro 2020 this summer, stated, “Last year the team played for him, now the group must re-discover that Juve spirit that was there before his arrival.”
Speaking to The Athletic ahead of Juve’s clash with Chelsea, Bonucci also explained: “This was the thing, the idea that one player, even the best in the world, could guarantee Juventus victory.
“Cristiano’s presence had a big influence on us. Just training with him gave us something extra but subconsciously players started to think his presence alone was enough to win games.
“We began to fall a little short in our daily work, the humility, the sacrifice, the desire to be there for your team-mate day after day. Over the last few years, I think you could see that.”
Well, United’s usually bubbly manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has had to defend his Portuguese superstar’s work-rate recently as part of an obvious PR exercise to play down the negatives. Players like Pogba and Fernandes have also already begun to openly voice their disapproval and dissatisfaction with the losses and goals the team has been conceding, hinting that ‘tactics’ and ‘mentality’ needing instant change, alluding to their disgruntlement with the management and obviously not with themselves.
It looks quite likely that Juventus’ gleefully-confessed gain in losing a particular striker could be Manchester United’s ultimate loss in the longer term.