The route to Manchester United for Ronaldo’s first spell at Old Trafford was not written in stone as he had offers from other clubs and one keen admirer was Arsene Wenger who were close to get his signature, but instead of joining Arsenal he chose Man Utd after convincing Sir Alex with an impressive display in a game against them, winning 3-1.
Romanian manager at the time, Laszlo Boloni, was the man who gave Cristiano Ronaldo the debut in the senior first team after being impressed by the dribbling capacity of the teenager. Boloni was a previous player at Steaua Bucuresti and a winner of the European Cup, and to complete the presentation, a Romania international with 102 caps in total.
While Ronaldo has been around in European football Boloni has also done his moves and had his last management experience with Panathinaikos, been in charge of the Greek giants from 2020 to 2021.
Ronaldo, a teenager at the time made the most out of his friendly v. Man Utd and the rest is history. He signed for Sir Alex and when his time was up, he moved on, to join Real Madrid.
Embed from Getty ImagesSir Alex and Laszlo Boloni was the two managers to be part of those first years, and not much change as the two influenced a career that continued at Real Madrid. The fact that Real Madrid only managed to win La Liga Primera just two times during the days of Ronaldo, did see a lot of great names of management taking charge.
The man in charge when Cristiano Ronaldo arrived was Manuel Pellegrini, but it was no doubt that Florentino Perez was the man in charge of the move valued to £80million and really a bargain buy looking at it all in the back mirror.
Manuel Pellegrini left the club after that first season and the new man in was Jose Mourinho. Mourinho stayed for three years with Carlo Ancelotti taking over. Rafael Benitez was next and after him Zinedine Zidane had his time in charge. He had left by the time Ronaldo made his move to Juventus, with a certain Spanish head coach being announced as their next manager just before the start of the World Cup, which did see Julen Lopetegui sacked from his post just in front of that vital tournament.
During his days at Juventus Massimiliano Allegri was the one in charge at this arrival, later it was Sarri and Pirlo who had their days in charge before Cristiano Ronaldo made his move back to Man Utd and is now for the first time in his career being managed by a former team mate in Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
Despite being seen as a grand footballer and by many described as the best with a regime of pureness and disiplin that seldom is seen in this game. At the age of 36 he still performs at a level few in his age have done before him and it shows that attitude and hunger can keep you going all the way to the 40’s and further if you still want to play on.
Stanley Matthews and Peter Shilton are two former players who did the same and at the age of 36 still was performing at top level going long into their 40’s performing well, so it’s done before and can of course be copied and we believe Cristiano Ronaldo will be offered a job if he decides to play on into his late 40’s.
Football is a strange game and certainly for Cristiano Ronaldo the return to Man Utd have seen a start few would believe with three goals scored in his first two games, hopefully OGS will be lucky and keep his momentum both at home and out in Europe.
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