Cristiano Ronaldo’s biggest mistake? Leaving Real Madrid. It’s all downhill from here, his teammate advises

Cristiano Ronaldo came to Manchester United in the summer to restore the club’s lost lustre and help win some valuable trophies again. But the Red Devils are not doing well, and although Ronaldo is scoring goals, it’s not the same. As a result, there are increasing voices saying that Ronaldo should not have left Real Madrid.

Cristiano Ronaldo and Real Madrid, it was a perfect marriage that worked perfectly. The White Ballet prepared all the opportunities for Ronaldo, the Portuguese sniper returned the confidence of his teammates with goals scored.

2014, 2016, 2017, 2018. In these years Real Madrid won the Champions League. He absolutely dominated Europe, there was no opponent that could match him. But this “idyll” may have begun to bore Ronaldo. He’s known to need new challenges, new motivation, and that was hard to come by after three Champions League titles in a row.

So he left to seek a new challenge in Turin, Italy. He set himself the goal of winning the Champions League title with Juventus. But he miscalculated a bit. He never made it past the quarter-finals with the Old Lady, the team around him started to weaken a lot, until last season Juventus even had to forget about the league title and fight for the Champions League at all.

What the heck, Ronaldo’s stats continued to be great. He scored 36 goals last season, 37 in the previous one and 28 in his opening one. It was no longer Real Madrid, where everything was set for him. And there’s also a difference when you have chances set up by Kroos and Modric, or Rabiot and Bentancur.

And it didn’t go back to the way it was with his return to Manchester United either. That connection just doesn’t work, even though Ronaldo has netted 14 goals and added 3 assists, the Red Devils play is literally atrocious. The Portuguese is certainly not shining like he did at Real Madrid and is rather struggling at Old Trafford.

Ronaldo should have taken the words of his former Croatian teammate to heart. When James Rodríguez and Álvaro Morata wanted to leave the Champions League-winning team in 2017 to get more playing space, Modric warned them.

“It’s definitely not an easy decision to leave Madrid. When you leave, nothing is the same. Here you are at the best club in the world, that’s without a doubt, from here the only way is down. Everyone has their reasons, but I don’t really understand it,” Modric expressed his feelings to Marca newspaper.

And time is proving him right. James spent a loan spell at Bayern, then had one season at Everton and now, at just 30, he is playing in Qatar. Morata, on the other hand, has been changing clubs like socks, unable to settle properly anywhere, having been at Chelsea, Atlético Madrid, Juventus and now he’s about to leave again, this time to Barcelona.

Cristiano Ronaldo hasn’t got further than the quarter-finals of his beloved Champions League since his transfer from Real Madrid. Raphael Varane is struggling at Manchester United, his performances certainly not resembling the stopper who has been one of the best in the world over the last decade.

Virtually no one who has left Real Madrid has improved significantly. Thus, if Ronaldo had stayed in the Spanish capital, he could have continued to win trophies and rewrite history even more than he does now. How that would have turned out, however, we will never know.

Source: Livesport, Marca