I found the aftermath of "Gonad-gate" to be depressing and yet utterly predictable. When England crash out of the World Cup or European Cup at the quarter-final stage, it has to be the fault of a Manchester United player. For Beckham in 1998, read Ronaldo in 2006. Never mind that the coach had chosen to omit the best-scoring English forward in the Premiership (Darren Bent) and a reasonably experienced second-string striker (Jermaine Defoe) in favour of a 17 year old who has yet to play in the Premiership and who was never seriously considered for action in Germany. Never mind that the manager tinkered endlessly with the formation and somehow contrived a team in which players who regularly excel for their clubs, looked extremely ordinary. If Frank Lampard had been an unknown from a lesser league, there's no way his performances at the tournament would have justified a big money move to Middlesbrough, never mind Chelsea. No, it has to be because testes-trodding Wayne Rooney was sent off immediately after his club"mate" complained to the referee. Incidentally: here's a nice bit of cognitive dissonance - one of the regular complaints about C-Ron is that he dives to try and win free-kicks, but this is apparent mainly because the ref generally fails to award the foul. If referees tend to be unpersuaded by the Portuguese winger's complaints, why is this complaint any different? It wasn't a particularly "friendly" thing to do to his fellow Red, but probably had no bearing at all on the ref's ruminations. For this, he has become persona non grata in the UK?
Sadly, it seems that he will go anyway. But it may well be the case that he had been set on a move before the summer anyway and intended to use the World Cup as a shop window for his talents. He has certainly burned his bridges with United fans. They may have been divided as to his actions in the quarter-final, but no United fan wants to hear their player moon for a move to another club. It may be taken as further evidence for United's decline - and if reinforcements aren't forthcoming this summer it will be - but in moving to Real Madrid, Ronaldo would not be moving up but sideways, or even slightly downwards. The "Galacticos" have been trophyless for longer than United and he would be joining a team which will include the player he was supposed to replace at Old Trafford somewhat of a fixture, albeit for marketing rather than footballing reasons, in his preferred slot and perhaps even his nemesis at United: Van Nistelrooy.
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