Cristiano Ronaldo just turned 38 yesterday, and it was another step towards the twilight end of a magnificent playing career. After playing for some of the biggest European clubs, he finally decided to join the Saudi Arabian club Al-Nassr this year. Ronaldo enjoyed his best spell in a Real Madrid shirt.
He is still considered a bargain, despite costing almost a whopping $100 million back in 2009. However, he did have a few wobbles there and we will talk about one such wobble.
Cristiano Ronaldo had a meteoric rise to greatness toward his final years at Manchester United. He joined Manchester United in 2003. Sir Alex Ferguson was fascinated by a Portuguese teenage winger in the Sporting lineup in a friendly match against the Portuguese side. Ronaldo had the initial impact as a flair player, who loved running through the wings with pace and bags of trickery.
Slowly he developed himself as more of a goalscorer. His goalscoring instincts developed from 2003 to 2007. Ronaldo had an unbelievable 2007-08 season, where he scored a stunning 42 goals in all competitions for Manchester United. He also finished in the second position of the Ballon d’Or award behind AC Milan talisman Kaka.
Next season Cristiano won his first Ballon d’Or for his unreal 2007-08 campaign. And in the summer of 2009, he joined Real Madrid for a record $100 million transfer fee. Ronaldo had to wear number 9 for the first season. The following season Raul Gonzalez left the club and vacated the most iconic number 7 for the young Portuguese.
Ronaldo had an incredible start to life as he scored 33 goals in his first season for the club. He won La Liga in the Spanish capital with a massive 96 points. Ronaldo’s goalscoring tally only increased after that.
Cristiano Ronaldo apologized for a poor performance against Malaga
Real Madrid had an underwhelming 2013-14 season on a domestic scale. They finished in third place behind the champions Atletico Madrid and runners-up Barcelona. Although Real Madrid did win the Copa del Rey final against their arch-rivals Barcelona. It was the match where Ronaldo enjoyed the iconic Gareth Bale goal from the stands.
In Real Madrid’s underwhelming La Liga season, there was one match where their star man apologized to the fans despite scoring and winning the match. It was Real Madrid’s home match against Malaga on October 19, 2013. Real Madrid started the match in the usual tone, dominantly.
Ronaldo was getting chances from the very beginning of the match. He hit the cross-bar from just inside the 18-yard box with a venomous hit. The first half ended with a 0-0 scoreline, much to the audience’s dismay. However, Di Maria scored in the opening minutes of the second half. After that Real Madrid kept getting chances and Real’s number 7 kept missing chances.
It wasn’t till the dying minutes of the match that Real Madrid was awarded a penalty through a handball by a Malaga player. Cristiano Ronaldo stepped up to take the penalty and slotted it hard down the left bottom corner of Willy Caballero’s goal to make it 2-0.
Throwback to when Ronaldo missed several chances in a game for Madrid, so he apologized to the fans after scoring ❤️pic.twitter.com/kK3hcAcdr5
— Janty (@CFC_Janty) February 5, 2023
The story is about how he celebrated the goal. He made a run towards the Real Madrid fans and it looked like he will do his usual ‘SIUU’ celebration, but no! Ronaldo made a gesture of ‘no’ with his hands and then lifted both his hands up to apologize to the fans for missing big chances. The soccer world saw a different side of Cristiano Ronaldo and fans remember it very well to this day.