London: The public relations push has been relentless at Manchester United these past few days, detailing everything about Cristiano Ronaldo from his movements in training, his greatest goals, his reclaiming of the iconic No. 7 jersey, to the inside story of his goal celebration.
Ronaldo, of course, was immediately added to the giant mural emblazoned outside Old Trafford. United jerseys with his name on the back are flying off the shelves in the club's megastore.
"Cristiano is in the house," United midfielder Bruno Fernandes said.
His first appearance back at United is likely to be against Newcastle on Saturday and it is one of the most anticipated occasions in the history of the Premier League, even if the match will not be televised live in Britain because of previously agreed broadcasting arrangements.
But away from all the glitz, the hype and the marketing, what can the soccer world expect of the 36-year-old Ronaldo in what could be the last big move of his club career? Does his presence virtually ensure United will be closer to winning trophies, as Fernandes has said.
Certainly, Ronaldo is a still a guarantee of goals. He has a staggering 785 goals in 1,075 appearances for club and country, after all. He has just become the record scorer of all time in men's international soccer, with 111 goals, and is coming off a European Championship where he won the Golden Boot with five goals in four games.
The top scorer in Champions League history with 134, Ronaldo has delivered the following number of league goals in his last five seasons at club level: 29 in 33 games (2020-21), 31 in 33 games (2019-20), 21 in 31 games (2018-19), 26 in 27 games (2017-18), and 25 in 29 games (2016-17).
However, even if he was top scorer in Serie A last season and had 101 goals and 22 assists in a total of 134 appearances for Juventus, his three years in Turin should perhaps act as a warning for United.
Juve steadily declined with Ronaldo there, to the extent that the team only just scraped a fourth-place finish last season to qualify for the Champions League. In the Champions League, Juve reached the quarterfinals just once with Ronaldo, before he arrived, it got to the final in two of the previous four seasons.
That maybe was not all his doing, it was a turbulent period for Juve, which had three coaches in Massimiliano Allegri, Maurizio Sarri and Andrea Pirlo, all of whom had different approaches, yet his presence did wind up being divisive purely for the fact it meant the team seemed to exist as a function to get the best out of him as opposed to working as a unit.
More than 28 per cent shots taken by Juventus last season came from Ronaldo. Juventus was the team that supplied the most crosses in Serie A, serving arguably the best header of the ball in the world whose best work increasingly came in the six-yard box. He had 168 shots in total, 31 more than any Premier League player had. "If there's Ronaldo, you need to have a squad that suits Ronaldo," Sarri, who was Juventus coach in the 2019-20 season, said recently.
