Antonio Barilla
SENT TO DOHA
Fernando Santos’ players review the schemes on the central pitch of the Ash-Shahaniya Sport Club, the training center forty kilometers from Doha chosen by the Federaçao Portuguesa. Closed doors and rigid checks ensure privacy, not serenity because they cannot stem insinuations and controversies related to the Ronaldo case. Since yesterday, unemployed luxury in the light of the termination with Manchester United: a point on a poisonous controversy, but also the beginning of a new wave of indiscretions, because having ascertained that the future will be elsewhere, the gossip will contaminate the reconstructions of real negotiations.
Where will CR7 go? It’s the theme of the day. Never mind if tomorrow’s debut is on the calendar and Ghana aren’t such a soft opponent, never mind if it will be the last World Cup for him and he wants to leave a deep impression. Too cumbersome, to the point of contradicting himself: he had asked, in an admonishing tone, to talk about the World Cup and not about his events, and then what is he up to? Break with the news.
«Consensual agreement with immediate effect – reads the press release of the Red Devils -. The club thanks him for his immense contribution over the two spells at Old Trafford. We wish him and his family every future good.” Beyond the facade words, the sadness of a stormy ending and the feeling of a champion who would like to stop time remain. He swears that he is at the top and that he only needs the right conditions, but he should ask himself, beyond the class, why he has encountered so many problems in recent years, why so many of his coaches have jumped, above all why, trying new cribs, has found an infinite number of closed doors. Only excessive demands – the Champions League, the monstrous signing – or even the doubt that the added quality isn’t worth a undermined team? The concrete possibilities lead to Saudi Arabia (“I rejected a 350 million offer”, confided CR7) and to America where David Beckham, president of Inter Miami, is waiting for you. Australia is also a candidate which, unable to cover it with gold, promises love: “We are in contact”, the confirmation of Danny Townsend, CEO of the A-League, already the last stage for Del Piero and Romario. However, he still wants European football: they say that Jorge Mendes proposed him unsuccessfully to Real Madrid, that they evaluated together the suggestion of returning to Sporting Lisbon, that contacts have been made with Chelsea, that possible destinations have been analyzed in Serie A. The free indulgence withdraws Napoli and associates Inter, but the most viable path would be that of José Mourinho’s Roma, another legend of Lusitanian football. For now, the only truth is that after the World Cup he won’t return to Manchester: «I love this club, the fans – he writes – and what has happened in the last few weeks won’t change my feelings. The right time has come for a new challenge.” —
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