When will £80 million begin looking like a steal?

Simples, really. In 2009 Real Madrid offered Manchester United an Emperors Ransom for CR7. United accepted, and everyone was on their merry way. Fast forward nearly four seasons later, and both teams have had reasonable success. United will win their second league title since he left & have made one CL final. Madrid have won one La Liga, look like they will win their second Copa del Rey, and should make their third CL semi-final in a row.

But in the meanwhile, Ronaldo has been an absolute beast. Averaging over a goal a game. And is a goal away from hitting double digits in consecutive Champions Leagues. As important as the on-field achievements are, in a deal which saw Real Madrid shift £152 million (£ 80 million transfer, £72 million in salary) the brand of the player has to be remarkable to recoup funds. By 2010 it was thought that sales of Ronaldo memoribillia had already paid for his sales. And with Real Madrid getting 50% of all earnings the Ronaldo brand makes (apparently that is why he was, sad), Surely they are at the point where the £ 80 mil was a steal?

I remember sitting in a pub with a few United fans in 2005 and they were absolutely slaughtering Ronaldo calling him a wasteful show pony and one trick wonder. A mate of mine was adamant that he would come good but he was almost laughed out of the building and here we are...

I posted a thread on here about 18 months ago asking the question as to whether Ronaldo is better than Messi and one poster poured scorn over that claim calling me a Ronny bumboy! I'd say they about as good as each other.

Is 80 million a steal? I'd say so. He's possibly the biggest commodity in football. Beckham's star is surely fading now?

Ronaldo is better than Messi.
He has proven himself in two leagues.

Messi also gets ridiculous service at Barca with Xavi and co.

Ronaldo has to make do with the likes of Ozil and Alonso.

Freakshow I was that one person in my group of friends. I said he would become one of the top three players in the world and was ridiculed at the time. It was nice to do a 'I told you so'. Even better seen as most of my predicitons go belly up!

Ive been saying dortmund for the champions league.since the end of the group stage if anyones interested.

Id say that ronaldo was in hindsight a snip at £80m. I doubt you would find many united fans that wouldn't have him back for £60m.

Messi > Ronaldo for me but that's a different debate!

It is a steal when you look at it. Utd would be a much much stronger team now with him. I think they may have been hoping Nani would progress but he hasn't.

Olly

Not sure you'd call it a steal - £80 million is an awful lot of money and an amount few teams could afford to turn down (basically only those with benefactors with effectively bottomless pockets like Man City). Man U made a very hefty profit on a player they signed mostly as potential and turned into a world class operator.

Remember Gazza - after Italia 90 he was a star in the ascendant and was on the verge of superstardom until he made one bad tackle in the FA cup semi final and was never quite the same player afterwards. Sometimes you have to cash in your assets at the right time.

I agree with your comment on Nani - he was signed with the intention of being the new Ronaldo, but has remained just a wasteful show pony and hasn't developed the power and end product to his game that CR did.

As for Ronaldo or Messi, in part it depends what you want, and otherwise it would be a nice decision to have to make (if your team has a spare £125 million to invest in one player).

I don't remember Gazza after Italia 90 unfortunately Dummy Half, I wasn't on the earth then!

Madrid got a a great buy, even for 80 million. Utd though are obviously not as good without him. They will win the league but they look to slow in Europe.

Olly wrote:I don't remember Gazza after Italia 90 unfortunately Dummy Half, I wasn't on the earth then!

Makes me feel old...

Anyway, my point was that you never really know what is going to happen to a sportsman in the future, and it would have been extremely brave of Man U not to cash in on Ronaldo at that time (especially given the debt the club had after the Glazer take over). Every sportsman is potentially one moment away from the end of their career - heck, look at the jockey that won the National on Saturday and damn nearly ended up in a wheelchair after a fall yesterday...

I think when it comes to mega deals, no amount of on-field success can justify an expensive acquisition. The guy has to be mega marketable as well. Ronaldo fits that perfectly

Madrid got him cheap really.

Going deep in the cl and the markets in the Far East are worth so much and he was very valuable for both of these aims.

Lets not forget we've had to buy players to replace him, doubt we would have gone for all 3 of Valencia, kagawa and zaha + others e.g. Bebe.

Madrid have got a guy who's scored 30-50 goals four seasons in a row and had huge commercial success.

It was good deal at the time, I believe the largest amount of profit ever made on a player in the history of football. Imagine if they had turned down the £80 million and then he broke his leg, was out for a year, and was never the same player again.

Plus he is funadamentally a diver, a cheat, a bad person, and not a team player and Ferguson may have factored that in. He is the kind of player who could bring negative publicity to a club a la Suarez or Maradona, but he hadn't so far.

With the benefit of hindsight, it was a good deal for Real Madrid. He's only 28 so he might still be worth £50 million.

To be honest, I really thought Freguson might sell him after the winking incident in 2006, as he was going to be a pariah in the premierhsip after that. But he stuck by him as he did with Beckham in 98 and it was an even more spectactular sucess. Then he offloaded at a good time to get the maximum cash. Ferguson knows what he's doing.

They seem to be doing OK without him at the moment.

Arguably, United might have had another Champions League had they been able to keep hold of Ronaldo though.

He wanted to go and everyone was happy with the deal. Utd got £80m, Ronaldo got his move and Madrid got Ronaldo. £80m will never be a bargain but at the end of his career, Real may just be able to justify the money spent.

United wouldn't have beaten Barca with Ronaldo in 2011.

Ronnie just hit 200 goals for Real, at better than a goal a game. Absolute legend he is