Time is running out for Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo to find a team to join him and compete with him in the Champions League, and to get out of his "golden prison" with Manchester United, where he became a prisoner of the bench with the start of the current season of the Premier League.
But the options are not many for CR7. The clubs that can afford the player's salary have all refused to include him, leaving only lesser known destinations.
And last Thursday, the account of the British newspaper "Daily Mail" on "Twitter" - based on other accounts on the communication site - stated that "Cristiano Ronaldo is about to return to Sporting", the club from which he started.
Report claims Man United players think Cristiano Ronaldo is a pain in the a*** and celebrated when he told the club he wanted to leave https://t.co/bZc8wJHZ3L
— MailOnline Sport (@MailSport) August 30, 2022
3 minutes later, the Daily Mail wrote in a new tweet that "sources close to Manchester United reduce the possibility of a transfer."
The story of the comeback seems "poetic", and the only one that would allow everyone to come out with their heads held high by highlighting the emotional crack over the financial.
From a sporting point of view, Ronaldo can enhance Sporting's chances in the League and the Champions League, as he signed in a theoretically available group with Eintracht Frankfurt, Tottenham, and Marseille, France.
This also allows the Portuguese to establish his position as the best scorer in the history of the mother continental competition (141 goals), and only Argentine Lionel Messi (125 goals) is able to compete with him.
A few months before the start of the World Cup in Qatar, his move to the team he plays with on a permanent basis will ensure that he is the undisputed key player in the team without any risks.
The obstacles are real, especially on the financial level, of course, but moving to the "lions" team is the most credible path at the moment.
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Marseille dream
In Marseille, rumors about Ronaldo's possible arrival at the club started as a joke on Twitter, a composite photo of the Portuguese in a Marseille shirt posted in mid-July from a well-known fan of the French club.
It was clearly a joke at first, and gradually the idea was taken seriously and the phenomenon grew.
The newspaper "La Provence" titled on its front page "Decoding the phenomenon", explaining that it was unfounded and that it disturbed the club's management.
In fact, Marseille sporting director Pablo Longoria was not happy when he answered a question about it after the Champions League draw: "It's a world of social networks and hype. We play football with the means we have. A dream is a beautiful thing, but we must be honest: we have A serious sports project with an economic balance.
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Naples itinerary
Given the caution of the Italian press, the Napoli poll route by Ronaldo's agent doesn't look much more promising.
With his qualification for the Champions League, the Italian club suggested that its Nigerian striker Victor Osimhen leave for Manchester United for at least 100 million euros, and they would welcome the Portuguese on loan in return, but the "Red Devils" will continue to cover his salary to a large extent.
Coach Luciano Spalletti admitted that he was tempted by the idea, saying, "Which coach would give up this opportunity to do something that he will remember for the rest of his life and be able to talk about?"
But he stressed that "there are no negotiations underway", and that it is necessary to "stay as realistic as possible and take into account only what might happen."
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Annoying and his colleagues wish him to leave
And the British newspaper "The Sun" reported that Ronaldo has become annoying to his colleagues in "Germany" who see that he lives in the past, and they were happy with the spread of news of his departure from the team.
The Portuguese star, who won the Golden Ball for the best player in the world five times, is experiencing a hot summer, as he wants to leave the club, while Dutch coach Eric Ten Hag kept him on the bench in the Liverpool and Southampton matches, which the "Red Devils" won after a bad start to the season.
And the network “ESPN” (ESPN) published a report on Ronaldo’s condition inside Manchester United, in which it stated that the Don lives in ruins and does not like the players present, as he expects Harry Maguire and Marcus Rashford to become like Rio Ferdinand and Wayne Rooney, and he gets angry when they do not pray. To the ceiling of his expectations, and as a result many players were delighted when the news of Ronaldo's departure from Manchester United began.
Ronaldo returned to Manchester United last summer after leaving the team in 2009, moving to Real Madrid.