IdleRich
IdleRich
I didn't realise that Ronaldo is apparently actually going back to United. There have been a lot of transfers lately that I just don't understand. When you are a kid you think that teams should just buy the biggest most glamorous names and if you play some manager game on the computer you end up with a team with the five biggest strikers in the world and you put them all on the pitch at once...
But as you get older you realise there is a bit more to building a team than that and that top teams don't just buy names, they have strategies for the overall shape of the team and within that they have tactics of what types of players they are missing and lists of those who could potentially come in and do the job - they are watching people all over the world, monitoring everyone from first team players to those coming through in youth teams and seeing if they have the potential to be molded into what they need, comparing their strengths and weaknesses with other options, seeing how they will fit with the present team and other potential signings, will their skills bring out the best in each other or will they cancel each other out... and a million other considerations that I am not even aware of.... but it seems that all this can go out of the window for the chance to give Ronaldo the dream ending to his career at the club that made him.
I suppose that Messi's fame and glamour made him irresistible to PSG even if his powers are fading; imagine then how easily United's defences were overwhelmed by this double-whammy of glamour and sentiment - and, I suppose, the simple romantic perfection of the story with its dream ending; Ronaldo finishing his career on a high with a second Premier League and Champions League double at the club he joined as a skillful but lightweight teenager and left as the best player in the world*.
And of course it would be a great story if it happened, because it's so unlikely to happen. And I thought that professional football clubs should have someone there whose job it is to make trophies likely, not romantic. Some have criticised United for employing Solksjaer as though in the sentimental hope that his very presence would somehow bring back the glory days when he was the baby-faced assassin, but that looks like a cynically hard-headed business decision compared to this fairy-tale, to me it feels like a sad old man trying to recover his youth by going back to an old flame, not realising that it will never be as good the second time around and that there is every chance of tarnishing the treasured memories... though in that analogy I am not sure if the sad old man is Ronaldo or United.
Unless it works out of course and then I will be happy to be proven wrong.
*let's say that just for the sake of the story
But as you get older you realise there is a bit more to building a team than that and that top teams don't just buy names, they have strategies for the overall shape of the team and within that they have tactics of what types of players they are missing and lists of those who could potentially come in and do the job - they are watching people all over the world, monitoring everyone from first team players to those coming through in youth teams and seeing if they have the potential to be molded into what they need, comparing their strengths and weaknesses with other options, seeing how they will fit with the present team and other potential signings, will their skills bring out the best in each other or will they cancel each other out... and a million other considerations that I am not even aware of.... but it seems that all this can go out of the window for the chance to give Ronaldo the dream ending to his career at the club that made him.
I suppose that Messi's fame and glamour made him irresistible to PSG even if his powers are fading; imagine then how easily United's defences were overwhelmed by this double-whammy of glamour and sentiment - and, I suppose, the simple romantic perfection of the story with its dream ending; Ronaldo finishing his career on a high with a second Premier League and Champions League double at the club he joined as a skillful but lightweight teenager and left as the best player in the world*.
And of course it would be a great story if it happened, because it's so unlikely to happen. And I thought that professional football clubs should have someone there whose job it is to make trophies likely, not romantic. Some have criticised United for employing Solksjaer as though in the sentimental hope that his very presence would somehow bring back the glory days when he was the baby-faced assassin, but that looks like a cynically hard-headed business decision compared to this fairy-tale, to me it feels like a sad old man trying to recover his youth by going back to an old flame, not realising that it will never be as good the second time around and that there is every chance of tarnishing the treasured memories... though in that analogy I am not sure if the sad old man is Ronaldo or United.
Unless it works out of course and then I will be happy to be proven wrong.
*let's say that just for the sake of the story