Farewell Cristiano Ronaldo

So farewell Cristiano Ronaldo.

United have allowed Real Madrid to discuss the terms of a contract which speculation suggests was sealed last year. You have asked to be released from your current deal and the negotiations are expected to be concluded within the next two weeks.

Your eventual departure will come as no surprise, but I must say that it will still hurt.

Some £80 million of Real Madrid’s money will lure you from Old Trafford and it could take a great deal more to finally replace you fully. Undoubtedly, Sir Alex will need two, if not three, players to compensate for your departure. Yes, you are that good.

The greatness attached to some players has often become a noose but it is an apt superlative in your regard.

I’ll remember for a long time some of the goals you scored. Your strike at Fulham in the Spring of 2007, when United improbably took the title from Mourinho’s Chelsea, was a fabulous moment.

Then, there was a terrific back-heeled effort against Villa in 2008, a stunning free kick against Portsmouth that same season and of course the goal that put United on the road to capturing the Champions League trophy in Moscow last year. The thunderbolt that put paid to Porto’s Champions League ambitions this past season brings tears to the eyes, too.

But it’s not just the goals—you scored 42 last year as a winger, an astonishing feat in the modern era—that make you such an outstanding player. You have come to define the art of the step-over. Your pace is devastating to tiring defences. No one takes free-kicks as you do.

In short, you can run at pace with ball, beat the last defender with nonchalant ease, cross with pinpoint accuracy, head powerfully, shoot with destruction and score with ruthless efficiency. In short, you have everything expected in the armoury of the modern forward—tracking-back notwithstanding!

What’s more, all this was announced from the very start. I remember your debut against Bolton. Even the television commentator had been primed to extol the virtues of the gangly youth who would come on as a substitute.

There should be no tears about Beckham’s departure, we were told, because the tanned, callow 18 year old, a £12.5 million capture from Sporting Lisbon, had the world at his feet.

You seemed a one-trick pony for a long while, frustrating one and all with the egotism of youth. That earned you the rebukes of Ruud Van Nistelrooy and his chuckle brother Alan Smith but you had Sir Alex’s ear. He could see the marvelous athlete taking shape under his watch.

With careful tutelage, you learned to control the dark side that had you tumbling at the lightest touch. You harnessed your speed and trickery to the team cause and you never looked back.

United were a beautiful sight to behold with you, Rooney and Louis Saha as the attacking trident in 2006, a year that will hold especial significance for you. The aftermath of the World Cup in Germany and your role in Rooney’s dismissal in Gelsenkirchen—the infamous winking incident—worked up Blighty into quite lather.

Even Alan Shearer, a pundit who approaches original opinion as if it were a terrorist with a backpack, suggested that Rooney should “stick one “ on you. The nation’s fourth estate agreed. Just as Beckham had been pilloried in 1998 for England’s loss to Argentina in the World Cup quarter final, so you became the whipping boy for the hacks of churnalism.

A mob threw stones at your house. You were hounded at every away ground as the season 2006-07 unfolded. But with Sir Alex exemplary in his defence of your talent and personality, you hit back in spectacular fashion.

Goal followed goal as match-winning performances multiplied. And, at last, you were gracious too, speaking of your love for United’s fans and your appreciation of their solidarity towards you.

Very soon you were redeemed. The Ronaldo brand was born and the world went crazy for the boy from Madeira.

You became a ‘marquee’ player with a level of notoriety shared only by Kaka and Barcelona’s Messi. Pundits wondered whether your spectacular feats of 2007 could be repeated. We know the answer now. Twenty-three goals became 42 goals. Your legend soared and you were recognised as the best footballer in the world.

All the time, however, your relationship with United fans was undermined by your willingness and that of members of your family, to discuss your interest in playing for Real Madrid. Yes, I understand that Manchester bears little comparison to the charms of Madrid, but did you have to be so blatant?

It got under my skin that you took every opportunity to talk of your “dream” of playing in Spain. What about my dream of believing that those who play in red love the club and are proud to represent it?

I suppose that doesn’t matter now. Stoked by the Spanish press, you briefed us regularly that, like the song made famous by Gabrielle, your dreams always come true. Even last year in Moscow, United’s crowning moment, you were at it again.

In the English press, you announced you were staying with the club. However, with a nod and a wink to the Spanish media, you let everyone know that it was just a matter of time before you would be running out in white.

The lying, the obfuscation, the willingness to tease—that’s what got to me Cristiano. It lessened you as a personality in these eyes.

Fortunately, Sir Alex played deaf, dumb and blind to the whole sorry saga. He preferred to blame Real Madrid, describing  the outfit as “Franco’s club” and declaring that he wouldn’t sell them “a virus.”

We know better now.

Still, the whole episode casts United as a sad cuckold, bravely trying to hold onto a wife who just wants to be somewhere else and with someone else. No matter what United did—a European cup, a World Championship, three titles on the bounce and a league Cup too—it was never going to be enough.

In fact, the more United won, the more you were convinced that you needed a new challenge.

You’ve got that now. Remember, even with the Brazilian Kaka, Real Madrid are still more or less the team walloped 6-2 by Barcelona and 4-0 by Liverpool. The goalkeeper is good and Ramos is a decent player too but they are likely to persist with the hopelessly passed-it Raul and that defensive nutter Pepe.

You must hope that Perez’ new Galactico experiment includes the purchase of some defenders. United might not, though. Madrid may come calling for Nemanja Vidic!

That is for another day. You now take your bag of tricks to Madrid, a place which has consumed you these past three years. You will be in good company alongside the mercurial Kaka and will be the centre-piece of  the latest project to revive one of Europe’s greatest names.

At the same time, your transfer will hint that United are a selling club, a rung down from the nine-times European cup winners, even as shocking and one-paced as they currently are.

Your transfer will encourage our rivals too. They saw you as the only reason why United continued to Hoover up trophies these past years.

That notion should be all the fuel Sir Alex needs to keep his competitive fires burning fiercely over the next two years. Gossip suggests that United will look to bring in Wigan’s Valencia as an early replacement.

I don’t know! Let us all hope that it is a big fat fib that the manager is looking at Robben, unless of course, he wants a hospital ward mate for the midfielder Hargreaves!

It will be a tall order replacing you and the task comes uncomfortably when the end of the Ferguson era is in sight. Let us hope that the manager is not exhausted by the rebuilding that will necessarily accompany your exit and can see the process through to a successful conclusion.

That too is for next season and beyond. For now, Cristiano Ronaldo, United legend, I salute you.