The likes of Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappe may be lighting it up in Europe, but even all the way in Saudi Arabia, Cristiano Ronaldo continues to prove he is still among the best forwards in the world.
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Around this time last year the iconic striker's immediate future looked grim as he had just been released by Manchester United following a notorious interview with British broadcaster Piers Morgan. He had criticised the club, the players and the manager before making an emphatic departure from the Theatre of Dreams, and subsequently Europe.
That is because no other top team on the continent seemingly wanted to have him on their books at the wages he'd command. While his form at United under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Ralf Rangnick was good, he fell out of favour under Erik ten Hag which later led to his disgruntlement. Teams witnessed that and seemingly decided that his goals were not worth the ego and the wage demands he'd come with.
So off he went to sign one of the biggest deals in football history in Saudi Arabia with Al Nassr. It is believed to be worth €200 million (R4 billion), and many felt Ronaldo was ruining his legacy by going to a relatively unknown league. Being a player of his stature and leaving for a league that very few people knew about, he was obviously going to bear the brunt of an onslaught of criticism from the public if it didn't work out, but this hasn't seemed to faze him because many other top players who were playing in Europe have followed suit.
The likes of Karim Benzema, Fabinho, N'Golo Kante, Riyad Mahrez, Sadio Mane and Aymeric Laporte have all made the move to the Middle East since, and while a large part of that league is still populated by Saudi Arabian footballers, Ronaldo is still showing his excellence among everybody else. In the 38 matches he has played for the Knights Najd, Portugal's leading appearance-maker and goalscorer has scored 32 times and provided 11 assists. Currently, he leads the race for the division's golden boot by four goals, and is leading his team's title charge too.
The likes of Haaland, Mbappe, Victor Osimhen and Vinicius Junior are, of course, the new generation and are producing magnificent numbers in the world's toughest competitions, and I think they will only get better, but Ronaldo could arguably score just as many as them if he was still playing with them. The five-time Ballon d'Or winner's non-involvement has nothing to do with football and everything to do with his refusal to be second fiddle to anybody else.
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It's not really practical for a team to invest a lot of money in a player who is approaching 40, with that big of an ego, so in that way it makes sense why teams do not want to bring him on board. If he was in a top European side, however, there is no doubt he would still be in Ballon d'Or contention.
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