Apparently the primary reason behind Cristiano Ronaldo’s desire to quit Manchester United is the brooding fear of losing his Champions League goalscoring record to his perpetual nemesis Lionel Messi.
Tony Cascarino has claimed that the Portuguese is keen, possibly even desperate, to bolt from Manchester United is due to his fear that his longtime Argentine rival will eclipse his Champions League goalscoring record.
Saturday dawned with the bummer news for United that Ronaldo has made it clear to the Old Trafford hierarchy his imminent desire to leave this summer barely 12 months after re-signing for the club from Juventus. United came short of qualifying for the Champions League after a debilitating Premier League campaign last year, and Ronaldo reportedly showed his disdain in playing in the lower-ranked Europa League under new boss Erik ten Hag next season. That surely should come as no surprise considering the massive ego the Portuguese striker is known to have.
With the fine sands of time rapidly trickling in his hourglass, the 37-year-old is understandably desperate to challenge for major honors in the twilight years of his career, and Cascarino attributes his main desire to quit Manchester United this summer is because the Portuguese superstar is afraid of one of his most impressive personal records being eclipsed by Messi. Ronaldo is the Champions League’s greatest ever goalscorer after notching 141 goals in the competition over the course of the past 19 years.
Messi – only 16 goals behind his rival – is notably a few years younger and is comfortably set to play in the prestigious tournament with Paris Saint-Germain next year. Cascarino is dead sure that Ronaldo’s “ego” of maintaining his Champions League record is the driving force behind his transfer demand.
Cascarino told talkSPORT: “Ronaldo is a player, as always, that has an ego. A lot of it is about him but the teams he’s played in have been successful, so you always go with that as a team player.
“Great, he scores goals, he gets the accolades, he’s one of the greatest that’s ever played the game. You can have all that and that’s fine, as long as you’re winning. When you don’t win, now you’ve got a problem.
“I said to you off-air, I’m a bit suspicious because he’s got 141 goals in the Champions League. Messi has got 125. He doesn’t want to not play Champions League football because he wants to be the greatest Champions League goalscorer of all time and that’s how Ronaldo is made.”
Undeniably, and most impressively, Ronaldo has gone on to play in Europe’s premier competition every single year since joining Manchester United the first time back in 2003. It is not altogether unreasonable that the veteran is keen to ensure that his remarkable run continues and it is believed that he will only leave United for a club who can offer Champions League football.
The Athletic has revealed that Chelsea and Bayern Munich are both monitoring Ronaldo’s situation with the former being the frontrunner – just days after it emerged that Ronaldo’s agent, Jorge Mendes, had met up with Todd Boehly in Portugal.
Napoli are also supposedly showing an interest in acquiring Ronaldo’s services.