EPL TALK: Stop sulking and just leave Man United, Ronaldo

CRISTIANO Ronaldo walked out on his team-mates. Roger Federer walked in with his oldest opponents and retired. Maybe it’s as simple as that. Maybe the descent of Superman really is all about the landing.

They can all fly. They soared for as long as most of us can remember. But they can’t all stick the landing. Even the late, great Christopher Reeve understood that. Land elegantly and the audience will uphold the mythology. We’ll believe in Superman.

But Ronaldo is morphing into Clark Kent, bumping into the furniture as he clomps off down the Old Trafford tunnel, with four minutes to go, sulking at being an unused substitute in Manchester United’s most accomplished performance of the season.

He’s made it all about him. Again. And it’s just so tiresome and needy now, like watching Richie Rich complain to household minions that he only got 700 presents instead of 701 at someone else’s party.

The Red Devils’ fast, smart and decisive 2-0 English Premier League victory against top-four rivals Tottenham Hotspur was a celebration of Erik ten Hag’s tactical influence, the emergence of a consistent playing pattern and a fine performance from the club captain.

But Ronaldo appears incapable of rejoicing in the success of work colleagues. Bruno Fernandes’ lovely, insouciant strike into the far corner capped an invigorating display. He’s dragged himself away from the native demi-god casting the longest shadow and rediscovered his creative value to the club.

Rather than applaud the recovery of his Portugal team-mate, however, Ronaldo turned his back on Fernandes, the supporters and the club’s ethos.

Sir Alex Ferguson once substituted Ryan Giggs at half-time against Juventus, when the winger was much closer to his athletic prime, for the intolerable crime of challenging the manager’s judgment.

Ronaldo has challenged everything: ten Hag’s authority, his decision-making and even his matchday plans. There were still four minutes left to play against Spurs. There were still substitutions to call upon, if needed. Ronaldo removed that option with an act of petulance usually seen in a kindergarten sandpit, when the kids won’t share the buckets and spades.

Legacy hangs in the balance

But Ronaldo won’t let go. He’s still digging, echoing the tawdriest aspects of George Best’s decline and premature departure. But Best’s demise came with caveats. The flawed genius was slowly succumbing to alcoholism in a nascent age of superstardom.

Global celebrity was new. A lack of empathy for addiction was old. Best lacked the psychological and medical support readily available today. So the empathy that was missing then is prevalent now. Best’s statue outside Old Trafford is a testament to his enduring legacy. A statue for Ronaldo seems unlikely at this point.

His legacy hangs in the balance. Such a suggestion seems silly, another lazy assertion from another hack seeking controversy through hyperbole. But legacy matters. And Ronaldo must consider his at United, the adoring home that set him on the pathway to untold riches, trophies and Ballon d’Ors (the one that has always mattered most, by his own admission, which says so much about where he is right now.)

Older fans will fondly remember the cheeky Road Runner dribbling past fallen coyotes. He once turned defenders into cartoons. But younger fans are seeing only the petty theatrics of a cartoonish villain, flouncing out of the stadium like a jilted lover in a Korean soap opera.

When Roy Keane was angry in the tunnel, he picked a fight with Patrick Vieira. The United faithful loved him for it. When Ronaldo was angry in the tunnel, he picked a fight with a kid’s handphone at Everton. The United faithful were embarrassed by it.

Keane’s career-long “weakness”, at least in his eyes, was a pathological obsession with the team ethic. Was he contributing enough, sacrificing enough and winning enough for the team? The questions drove him, haunted him and, perhaps inevitably, destroyed him at United.

But Ronaldo has a similar fixation in reverse. Is the team sacrificing enough for him? His ego goes further still, demanding more from his superiors. Is the manager doing enough for the Ronaldo cause? Are the Glazers supporting the Ronaldo enterprise? If not, why not?

Ronaldo sulks and runs down the tunnel because he seems genuinely slighted. He doesn’t get it. His complete package brought him here, to the top of the mountain, with the other one from Argentina, a couple of mountain goats bleating and basking in their unique status. Why can ten Hag not see what has been self-evident to all for almost 20 years?

The man in the mirror gets it, obviously, because he’s the only one still staring in the mirror, every morning in the gym, through every push-up and sit-up, defying science, cynics and bald managers with fancy ideas of squad reinvention.

But everyone else is looking away, towards United’s total dominance against Tottenham, towards the wave of counterattacks led by Diogo Dalot and Luke Shaw, towards Fernandes’ recovery and Marcus Rashford’s newfound confidence and towards a brighter, faster future of pressing football that has no place for a 37-year-old striker who keeps straying offside.

United is moving away from Ronaldo, leaving him alone with his legacy, the one aspect of his career still within his control.

Federer listened to his body, to his family, to medical experts, to everyone except the voice within. He ignored the ego that built a career to end a career. On his terms. He walked onto a tennis court with former foes and walked off with lifelong friends.

The greatest careers are still finite. But there’s usually a nice retirement package of eternal respect and gratitude to cushion the blow.

Ronaldo deserves some of that, too, but only if he makes amends at Old Trafford.

Leave United on a graceful note in January. Play the dutiful squad member in the meantime. Make the cameo appearances and applaud in all the right places, until a departure ends the apparent suffering of sitting on a bench for half a million a week.

Ronaldo can no longer fly, but he should still walk away with a bit of dignity.

Neil Humphreys is an award-winning football writer and a best-selling author, who has covered the English Premier League since 2000 and has written 26 books.

Follow the new EPL season with the "Footballing Weekly" show on YouTube, Spotify and Acast.

For more football news, visit our Football page on Yahoo!

You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter. Also check out our Southeast Asia, Food, and Gaming channels on YouTube.