The After effects of Cristiano Ronaldo – Manchester United’s website crashed, their shares rose nearly 7% and the announcement tweet became the most liked tweet in one hour. And CR7 hasn’t even played a game yet.
Premier League giants Manchester United on Friday beat their cross city rivals – Pep Guardiola and company – off the field, to bring back Cristiano Ronaldo at Old Trafford.
“Welcome back, Cristiano,” read a tweet posted by United. Within minutes, the club’s official website had crashed.
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The tweet grossed over 1.3 million likes in just 60 minutes. In one minute the tweet had over 100K impressions with close to 55K likes and 45K retweets, various sports websites confirm.
Ronaldo is 36 years old, a completely different player to the skinny, outrageously skillful 17-year-old winger who first arrived at United from Sporting Lisbon in 2003 with a box of tricks but little end product. In the following six years, he scored 118 goals in 292 appearances and swiftly became one of the most fearsome strikers in the world, winning the first of his five FIFA world player of the year awards.
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Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the current Man United manager, knows that all too well. He was once a teammate of Ronaldo.
“He is the greatest player of all time, definitely,” Solskjaer said Friday after Ronaldo’s return was sealed.
Ronaldo’s announcement created a buss enough to inflate Manchester United’s shares by nearly 7% to $18.47, Reuters reported.
No official fee has been disclosed yet. But as per BBC, Ronaldo’s transfer costed United 15 million euros up front and eight million euros as add ons. Sky Italia said he will sign a two-year contract worth 480,000 pounds ($660,048.00) a week.
Ronaldo won two Serie A titles and a Copa Italia trophy during his three years with Juventus.
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“Today I leave a wonderful club, the largest in Italy and certainly one of the largest in Europe. I gave my heart and soul for Juventus and I will always love the city of Turin until my last days,” the 36-year-old’s farewell message on Instagram read.
“I can look back and realise that we have achieved great goals, not all we wanted, but still, we have written a beautiful page of history together.”
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“I know (United’s Portugal midfielder) Bruno (Fernandes) has been talking to him as well and he knows what we feel about him. And if he was ever going to move away from Juventus he knows we’re here,” United coach Ole told a news conference on Friday.
Ronaldo’s move is the latest turn in this transfer window, coming barely two weeks after Lionel Messi — Ronaldo’s long-time rival — joined Paris Saint-Germain after his contract at Barcelona expired. PSG forward Kylian Mbappe is also the subject of a bid of about 160 million euros ($188 million) from Real Madrid.
