Cristiano Ronaldo arrived at Manchester United at age 17 and scored 118 goals in the next six years. Now he is coming back at age 36.
Cristiano Ronaldo is heading back to Manchester United, the team that turned him into a global superstar. In a fast-moving deal that stunned the world of soccer, Ronaldo secured a return to Old Trafford on Friday – a day after telling Juventus he no longer wanted to play for the Italian club. “Welcome back, Cristiano,” read a tweet posted by United. Within minutes, the club’s official website had crashed. Ronaldo is 36 years old, a completely different player to the skinny, outrageously skillful 17-year-old winger who first arrived at United from Sporting Lisbon in 2003 with a box of tricks but little end product. In the following six years, he scored 118 goals in 292 appearances and swiftly became one of the most fearsome strikers in the world, winning the first of his five FIFA world player of the year awards. Ronaldo will join for a fee of 15 million euros ($17.7 million), with 8 million euros ($9.4 million) in add-ons. The transfer is subject to agreement of personal terms, visa and a medical examination. It is the latest blockbuster move of the transfer window, coming barely two weeks after Lionel Messi – Ronaldo’s longtime rival – joined Paris Saint-Germain after his contract at Barcelona expired. PSG forward Kylian Mbappe is also the subject of a bid of about 160 million euros ($188 million) from Real Madrid. He never won the Champions League with Juventus, like he did with United in 2008 and four times with Madrid, but was the top scorer in Serie A for the last two seasons and scored 101 goals in 134 appearances. “In the end,” Ronaldo said, “we can all look back and realize that we achieved great things, not all that we wanted, but still, we wrote a pretty beautiful story together.
