Cristiano Ronaldo vs Manchester United - Who is the unwitting victim in the cross-fire?

The FIFA World Cup is less than a week away, and England are carrying a team that could potentially bring home the elusive silverware after 56 long years. However, glancing through English news channels, the print media, and socials today, non-football fans will be left bewildered.

Very little space of significance has been dedicated to the numerous teams who are currently on the plane to Qatar. Instead, a media meltdown has taken hold of the football world, particularly the one in Manchester.

Snippets of iconic footballer Cristiano Ronaldo launching a scathing attack on Manchester United in an interview with Piers Morgan have sent the footballing world into a frenzy.

Ronaldo's interview has a few accurate points and a few words of utter redundancy. It also features perhaps some delusional statements and some moments of pure vilification emerging out of what can be considered personal hatred.

What his interview does, however, is give the fans clarity on an already suspected toxic culture at Old Trafford. Ronaldo is clearly in conflict with the club and his interview suggests this cooker has been on the boil for quite some time.

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“It is Ronaldo. Manchester United. The Theatre is living its dream. Madeira, Manchester, Madrid, Turin & Manchester again. Reeved in Red. Restored to this great gallery of the game. A walking work of art. Vintage, beyond valuation, beyond forgery or imitation, eighteen years since that trembling teenager of touch and tease, first tiptoed on to the historic stage, now in his immaculate maturity, now CR7 reunited."

Peter Drury's commentary as Cristiano Ronaldo again walked out onto the pitch at Old Trafford on September 11, 2021, sent a shiver down the spine of every football fan, let alone the Red Devils faithful.

He was back at Old Trafford, the stage where he announced his arrival to the world. The romance, which was kindled back in 2003, was set to renew its shimmering chemistry and football had returned its prodigal son to the Theater of Dreams.

A little over a year down the line, the iconic No. 7 at Manchester United delivered his biggest blow at the club, sadly it was against the club itself. The interview burned the 'reunited' bridge, which was so delicately put in place in Drury's commentary.

The interview also raises an intriguing question. Ronaldo is not just a squad member at the club. He is a senior veteran and the biggest superstar in Manchester. So did his growing distaste for the club not come to the attention of the board before the end of the transfer window back in August?

If it did not, it points to incompetency from the board, something the former Real Madrid man has then correctly accused them of in his upcoming interview.

However, if the club were aware of the rising disparity but kept him nonetheless, assuming in the process that an 800-goal veteran will mold his thought process to the falling standards of a one-time giant, it indicates that there is a bigger ego at Manchester United than Ronaldo - the Glazer family.

If the second condition holds true, then the owners put unprecedented pressure on one man. This is the person who became the unwitting victim of this explosive interview - Erik ten Hag.

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Manchester United were falling from the skies long before Ronaldo arrived. The misshapen revolution under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer ended with very little fanfare.

The five-time Ballon d'Or winner's interview hit the nail on the head at certain points. This pertains to snippets where he talks about the amenities, infrastructure, diet, and lack of technology at the club.

So from the perspective of the club's fans, this exposed the terrible situation behind the scenes due to a lack of progression in board-level management.

For football fans around the world, Manchester United is "football heritage" and it is despairing to watch them lose their identity on the pitch.

Returning to Ronaldo's perspective, the worrying bit in the interview was perhaps the narcissistic tendency. He perhaps believes he is the best regardless of what he says or does. This is a cruel fallacy for a footballer who has soared to the zenith of the game.

His brutish potshot at Wayne Rooney, a former teammate who sacrificed his shining center-forward career in order for CR7 to get the riches, was nothing short of a barbaric comment.

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The other unnecessary hit taken out was at Erik ten Hag. Let's have a look at why the board could maybe have avoided this ugly mess.

We may be speculating here, but Ronaldo and Ten Hag have more in common than their differences when it comes to football. Both professionals glorify effort, brains, and discipline.

Ronaldo, for all his outspokenness bordering on insanity (at times), has never complained about hard work. The veteran forward worships it. So why slander Ten Hag (ETH) for the same?

Yes, the general consensus given the nature of the interview, as per human bias, could be that he is just full of discontent. Or maybe this is his outcry because the manager is not interested in one-manning his job on Ronaldo's ability to deliver. Ten Hag perhaps wants the squad more than he wants him and the Portugal captain cannot accept it.

If this is the case, it establishes a logical deduction that Ten Hag would have wanted the Portuguese forward gone in August itself. The Dutch boss is not naive to assume that a benched Cristiano Ronaldo will be the catalyst for a happy environment at the club.

This, in turn, further points to the conclusion that the board and the owners, despite knowing he will be benched and complicate the process for ETH, still decided on retaining the player back in August.

It points to the United board prioritizing ego over progress. A hurt Ronaldo harms his career, a hurt Manchester United agonizes billions. It derailed progress for a manager who took over a football club struggling from the glories of their own past.

Going forward, there are reports that the Glazers will fine Ronaldo but it will be ETH who will have to protect the first team from the media circus. Hence, the unwilling victim of the interview remains the Dutch boss.

A board focused more on the club would have preferred to cut ties with Ronaldo in August rather than drag the circus to town, as it inevitably did earlier today. Maybe contract termination, if the board knew what we do now, would have been a smart move for all involved parties.

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From Ronaldo's perspective, he did himself the biggest disservice by interviewing for Piers Morgan. A famous journalist in the United Kingdom, Morgan is unafraid to take a strong stand. The issue, however, is that he is a well-documented Ronaldo fan.

A look at his series of tweets from the past and present will show that Morgan will inevitably add his own flavor of views to the words of Cristiano Ronaldo. It will strongly ruin the impact (both positive and negative) of the words quoted by the footballer.

From the perspective of a football fan, I feel Ronaldo has now taken his biggest gamble or challenge, however you choose to see it. The problem is that he took it at 37. Football has a short memory and he is unlikely to find enough goals in his kitty to get out of this mess without dirt on his hands.

He exposed (correctly, some might say) United's absolute lack of ideas on how to function as a football club rather than a brand. However, he also covered himself in unwanted blood by belittling two people for not bending to his will.

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Addressing comments where Ronaldo said he does not respect Ten Hag, speculations have been buzzing as to the context of those words.

The Dutch boss has treated Ronaldo no differently on his bad days, respected him for his illustrious career, and even protected him from the media on multiple occasions. Ten Hag also did the little thing of handing him the armband against Aston Villa.

So the question arises as to why the forward is targeting the United boss for disrespecting him. Speculations can only point to the fact that the Dutch manager has only been politically correct when it comes to Ronaldo. Perhaps Ten Hag did lie behind the scenes.

The problem is, even if he did, so what? All big managers do. The Jurgen Klopps and the Pep Guardiolas and ironically Ronaldo's favorite and a legend of the game, Sir Alex Ferguson, only say exactly what they need to. They do so to get the job done and that is the ethical dilemma of real-world management.

Some might accuse this act of being dishonest, but management is far more than being a straight shooter. Ten Hag's priority is not to score 60 goals a season, his job is to coach the entire squad at Manchester United.

ETH's focus is on the Manchester United first team. He will and should do whatever is necessary to drag the team out of their average levels. Ronaldo, a 20-year veteran of the game, should not forget that this is professional football.

The Portugal captain should ideally be able to distinguish that what ETH did to him on the pitch is merit-based and that what Manchester United might have done to him is an innocent crime. This is because the board-level management at the club is itself lost.

The saddest thing is that the interview appears to be one that will insinuate a divide in the wall. It will not send a message of unity to fans of a club who want nothing more than for Manchester United to soar again.