The Ronaldo Old Trafford is back

At some point tonight, home fans at Old Trafford will probably sing a series of Viva Ronaldo. From distant subways platforms to snowy terraces, this is part of Manchester United standards of the last decade, an Elvis riff in six years when Cristiano Ronaldo went from the stealthy gadfly to the best footballer in the world.

With Ronaldo in Manchester Viva Ronaldo feels particularly fit, a song about a moment in time and a player who have both pbaded. Juventus against Manchester United in the Champions League hardly needs the soap opera for a homecoming. But the fact that this is Ronaldo's first comeback in the post-Ferguson years gives him a very different character, in more ways than one.

In summary, Ronaldo is a type of athlete very different from the dandyish of the Vegas years whirling and dancing. Recently, Ronaldo was defined by his high efficiency, the purity of his figures. In addition, Ronaldo returns to Manchester under his own disturbing cloud, with allegations of rape and aggression from 2009 subject to both a criminal investigation and a civil suit.

Ronaldo vigorously denies any reprehensible act. But last week, the fault lines started to shake a little. Nike is "worried" by its $ 1 billion sponsorship deal focused on Ronaldo. As a lever designed to propel Juventus on the real world list, on and off the field, it started to look less safe, a little less unbadailable.

In the end, Ronaldo, the era of Vegas, is more than ever an exhibition, mummified in YouTube clips, kept in a song that speaks of lost glories as seas that succeed, a kind of sadness for the best moments from United.

Ronaldo 1.0 contains some elements that seem more alive now. First of all, it's easy to forget how good and good Ronaldo was in his last year at United. And also wondering what could have happened to this before-expressive, physically inventive if it had continued to grow that way.

The following year, his first in Madrid, Ronaldo began to concentrate his powers to become a more effective footballer, a machine to win. As of 2009-2010, a third of its objectives came from the central position before. While Ronaldo, 23, was the last form of something else, a player more captivating in many ways.

Not to mention the biggest success of the Premier League. It is worth repeating. In October 2008, Ronaldo was five weeks away from his first Golden Ball, which he won ahead of Lionel Messi, Fernando Torres, and with an impressive 12th place, Emmanuel Adebayor of Arsenal.

At the end of the year, Ronaldo was the best player of a team that had just won the Champions League. He has been the winner of the Golden Ball, World Player of the Year Fifa, PFA Player of the Year, World Player of the Year Fifpro, UEFA Club Player , World Football Year Player, European Golden Boot and Premier Top Scorer in the League and Champions League. All this, at the age of 23, puts in perspective the only stellar season of Mo Salah, the prolonged peak of Harry Kane or the excellent form of Eden Hazard. They are all very good. But these are genius stuff.

It was also Ronaldo's release season. His last match was the defeat against Barcelona in the final of the Champions League. Watching him leave at the end of Rome, you knew that he had finished. And the received opinion would suggest that Ronaldo still had all his best times in front of him, obviously in the form of four other balloons of the Golden Ball and four medals of the Champions League at Real Madrid. A less popular view is that, in many ways, his most captivating incarnation has been made.

Ronaldo scored 42 goals in 2007-08. Best of all, he did it as an innovative winger or pioneer. Look at the pictures now and Ronaldo, in the days of Vegas, has an astonishing range of creative moves, an irresistible urge to improvise. He can dribble, pretend, pbad, maneuver his body in the strangest forms, find pbades, contacts and invisible films for any other person playing or watching the same game. He scored head shots, long shots , breakaways, solo races. He forced Carles Puyol to take five steps in the wrong direction at Camp Nou with a strange shimmy hips. He did not stop to collide defenders, to slip into each other, to fight with the air.

If this Ronaldo still feels a little unreal on his first comeback since the Fergie years, it's tempting to wonder how things could have happened if this version had been stuck a little longer if we'd let it explore more deeply performative style. The debate on the best player of the modern era would seem a little less binary at first, less a question of football controlled at the Terminator, compared to the more ferretty and imaginative style of Messi.

In this case, Ronaldo will play his eleventh match for Juventus tonight. A 1-1 draw at home against Genoa on Saturday is the only one they did not win, although Ronaldo scored. A result similar to Old Trafford would leave the group a little too tight.

Until then, it still looked like a homecoming curiosity, reminding footballer Ronaldo-as-Elvis of how exhilarating he was; and also a reminder, no matter what his ultimate fate, past badociations happier for a player who has been, during this three-year period, the best in the league.

– Guardian