An open letter to Cristiano Ronaldo from a Manchester United fan

The Madrid fans booed you even when the team was comfortably winning 5-0 against Rayo Vallecano; the reason being you not passing the ball to Morata for his tap-in, but you going all alone for the goal. How can someone be so fickle? Are Madridistas such a hard bunch to please, like their President Florentino Perez who brings in and disposes players and managers alike for fun?

This, for once, would never happen at Old Trafford even in your nightmares. Even when you’re not here, your name is chanted every week when United play. “Viva Ronaldo. Running down the wing, hear United sing. Viva Ronaldo.” It’s as if you never left this place.

For a kid earning less than a hundred quid at Lisbon, Sir brought you to the Theatre of Dreams. Even when you didn’t have the confidence to wear the #7 jersey, he was the one to have faith in you. For a teenager who was anonymous to the world until you signed for us, Fergie gave you the best platform to shine on the highest stage in club football. He gave you your début as an 18-year-old against Bolton. Even in the cameo that you played against Bolton, you won the hearts of the United faithful with your step-overs, and your runs past the opponents. The 75,000 odd crowd inside Old Trafford were witnessing a prodigy in action.

With a contract signed until 2015 with Real Madrid and with two years left on your contract, we were hoping you’d come to us last summer after Fergie’s departure. But you broke our hearts once again when you signed an extension until 2018. This made me revisit my previous thought of you being a mercenary. You have no idea how bad I feel to not see you in red. They absolutely ripped us off by paying £80 million. Even that seems a bargain now.

Cristiano Ronaldo doesn’t celebrate when he scored against Manchester United at Old Trafford

Whenever I think about the last 16 tie against Real Madrid last season, I always feel hard done by the incorrect red card decision against Nani; though all wasn’t over in the match as we were still leading. But when I saw you score the second goal for your team to knock us out, I sat still on my couch. You raised your arms in apology with no expression on your face. I didn’t know what to feel. Mixed emotions of admiration, fondness, and pain ran through my veins. I had a huge lump in my throat.

Now, after five years of your departure, the club has another wunderkind in its ranks in the name of Adnan Januzaj. In what has been a season in which we have hit rock bottom for the first time in the Premier League era, he has given us a glimmer of hope that not everything is over at the club as yet. When I close my eyes, he reminds me of a skinny you who took centre stage a decade ago. That ability to take on players and that desire to work his socks off can be seen in him.

But my only fear is that Real Madrid or any other rich club will come calling from overseas, just as they did for you, and pay the mighty amount for him, and we’ll have no choice but to let go of him.

Yes, we might not have the appeal of working under the living legend, that Fergie is, anymore; we might not have the capability to put you on our payroll, considering the mammoth wages that you are on; we might not have a star-studded starting eleven that would tear teams apart.

But here I am, hoping that you’d return one day to the club that made you; the club that stood by you even in your darkest times (read post World Cup 2006 with the whole Rooney sending off vs Portugal incident); the club that keeps singing your name week in and week out even with you playing for a club that is miles away.

Such is your status. I am not the one who would even stand close to the people having the ‘Ronaldo vs Messi’ debate. And why should I? Because there’s no debate. You’re simply the best for me.

I could go on and on talking to you about what I feel for you. The love and respect that I have for you only adds to it. Even if you never return to us any day, I won’t hate you. It can be a case of us not affording you or you not wanting to be the best player in an average team when you have a star-studded lineup to play with week in and week out. Also, with the way things are going for us, I think we’ll be a mediocre team for another 3-4 years, which gives you another reason to not come to us.

Despite all this, I, for one, fervently believe that you would return sooner or later. If you have even a thousandth of emotions and respect that we have for you, nothing in this world will stand between you and us. With “Viva Ronaldo. Running down the wing, hear United sing” chanted every week, we live with an anticipation that it’s just a matter of time and that you’ll belong to us in the future.

Here’s me living with the hope that one fine day, the news of “Cristiano Ronaldo makes a sensational return to Manchester United” will flash across all the news channels, newspapers, social networking websites, and God knows where. As The Shawshank Redemption quotes – “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” I want to follow this and till that dream of mine approaches reality, I will wait, as I have been, for the last five years.

Come home soon, Ronny. The doors of Old Trafford will always be open for you.