08/08/2020 - 14:18
- Clarín.com
- sports
Cristiano Ronaldo takes charge of the free kick, the last chance. It hits him with a thread, the parable invites illusion, but the barrier jumps to the maximum point and deflects the ball to the corner. The Portuguese laments but immediately taps into the heart of the area, now for the last ball. And they also reject it. The end of the game, with all of Lyon in a pineapple in the celebration and CR7 pointing to the sky with his eyes was a summary. A cut of your frustration. He had done everything. But it did not reach. And now?
"Go ahead or throw in the towel?" This is how an article in La Gazzetta dello Sport starts that raises the internal debate that CR7 will have at this time. He came to Juventus to win the Champions League and the accumulation of Scudettos is not enough. He more than passed the personal exam, the challenge of leaving the comfort zone that sheltered him at Real Madrid to take on the challenge in the Italian league. But the collective test, that of the team that was to go for the conquest of Europe, could not be.
It was 10 years since Juventus said goodbye to the Champions League in the round of 16. Lyon did not seem to be the most difficult obstacle to overcome. But the Italian team has been fraying for a long time. He relied too much on the margin of advantage he had taken in Serie A and it was enough to shout champion with a very discreet final stretch. Inter, Atalanta and Lazio, his pursuers, were largely responsible for not daring to snatch a conquest that had already been stamped before the coronavirus pandemic.
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O teu fizeste melhor that no 🙏 proud to see you play, and to see your dedication 🙏more unfortunately sozinho you cannot fazer all 👎alás more and impossível !!!!! You know that futebol is also, but you also have to think that fizeste or teu melhor, and you continue to be or melhor 🙌
A post shared by Elma Aveiro (@elma_oficial) on Aug 7, 2020 at 2:59 PDT
Now the mirror shows the most real face. Coach Maurizio Sarri was the first to pay for the frustration. And Cristiano was left standing in the center of the scene.
The Portuguese's bond with Vecchia Signora expires in 2022 and as soon as the elimination was completed, the club president, Andrea Agnelli, rushed to confirm its continuity and clear the ghosts. Cristiano did not speak.
He had done it on the field with two goals and a performance that deserved the classification towards the great definition in Lisbon. You will have dreamed of that hand-to-hand competition in your country. One fact sums up his obsession: in the last two years, all the goals that Juventus scored in Champions League knockout matches were made by Cristiano.
"Patience has a limit" , warns La Gazzetta. If Lyon left him without a dream of Orejona, another French club may come to the rescue to embark on another adventure. There PSG appears to seduce with a much more generous budget than that of Juve.
Ronaldo and Sarri. One already went through the small door. the other seeks new challenges. Photo. Reuters.
"You did it better than anyone, proud to see you play and see your dedication, but unfortunately you just can't do everything. Besides, it's impossible! You know that football is like that, but you also have to think that you did the best you could and you continue being the best, "wrote Elma Aveiro, one of CR7's sisters on her Instagram account.
It will be time to think and decide. In case of assembling the suitcases for Paris, the Portuguese would play in four of the five major European leagues. He began that stage in the Premier, with six seasons with the Manchester shirt, then his scale in the Spanish League arrived with nine magical years at Real Madrid and now he is completing his second season in Italy.
Neymar, Mbappé, Icardi ... Money will not be an impediment to Nasser bin Ghanim Al-Khelaifi, president and owner of PSG and the powerful BeIN Sport Group. The goal of the tycoon at the club is to win the Champions League for the first time. It is in the running in the current edition. But if he does stumble, Cristiano Ronaldo will have the possibility of a new hook to renew hope.
