As Cristiano Ronaldo wheeled away, shirt in the air, after firing home the penalty which gave Real Madrid a 4-1 lead over Atletico in the Champions League final in May, you couldn’t help that feel Florentino Perez’s master-plan had finally bore the fruits of his financial endeavours.
Much like a cartoon villain Perez’s attempts to secure a 10th European title for Madrid were foiled year after year, with high-profile managers such as Manuel Pellegrini and Jose Mourinho unable to deliver him the prize he coveted most.
Of course Carlo Ancelotti’s well-balanced side, spearheaded by the two attacking destriers in Ronaldo and Gareth Bale, ended the wait, and there was a feeling that all would now be well at the Santiago Bernabeu. The pressure had been lifted, the tension eradicated and the ultimate goal achieved.
The last of those three descriptions may be true, but merely two La Liga games into this campaign and things are threatening to fall down around Perez’s ears. Most worryingly for the team, and indeed anyone who calls themselves a Madrid fan, is that it’s Ronaldo who appears to have appointed himself chief wrecking ball.
Moving back to that fateful night in Lisbon, wherein the Portuguese star’s late penalty put an Atletico fight-back beyond all doubt, Ronaldo’s future seemed more certain than it had ever been. In September last year the talismanic forward put pen to paper on a new five-year contract which sees him take home a reported £288,000-a-week, and the Ballon d’Or bestowment earlier this year was the pinnacle of positives his recent form for Madrid has produced.
Put simply Ronaldo had become the saint that Perez had pictured in his dreams when he spent £80 million to take him from Manchester United, and the player himself was enjoying the most efficient period of his career. As is so often the case at Madrid however, bubbling a little underneath the surface is a plot that threatens to take the European dominance Los Blancos are vying to repeat and reduce it to ashes.
Ronaldo's return to United
And yet rather than dutifully taking up the usual stance of a high-profile player linked with a sensational exit from Madrid, by either backing off into obscurity for a time or claiming there’s ‘no problem’ with himself and Perez, Ronaldo has done the opposite, and further fuelled the rumours clinging onto the notion that he could make a spectacular return to Old Trafford.
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