The influence of Cristiano Ronaldo on the Manchester United hierarchy could be learned last Wednesday morning.
In order to give the Portuguese star a place in the giant picture smeared on one of the walls around Old Trafford, they had to bring a huge crane that would make an order again.
The picture of Bruno Fernandez was reduced to size, then shifted to the left and replaced by a larger one of Ronaldo.
This action is one of many that describes the Ronaldo-Mania experienced by the red side of Manchester, and which will culminate tomorrow against Newcastle in a game in which CR7 may wear red, 12 years after the last time (Saturday, 17:00).
Take the shirt, for example.
When the Portuguese summed up his terms at the club, the number 7 belonged to Edinson Cavani.
The Uruguayan very quickly realized the magnitude of the incident he had fallen into, and without hesitation gave up the number and took for himself the number 21, in which he plays for the national team.
Premier League rules state that if a team changes a number during a season, it must compensate any fan who purchased a shirt with the number changed.
In this case, there seems to be no problem.
Four hours after it went on sale, Ronaldo's new shirt shattered a record for selling sports equipment in one day outside of North America.
According to the company responsible for sales, Ronaldo's shirt was the best-selling of a player who moved a team in the first 24 hours of transfer.
More like Leo Messi at PSG, LeBron James at the Lakers and Tom Brady at Tampa Bay.
In fact, for the past two weeks the word "Ronaldo" has been worth its weight in gold not only when printed on T-shirts.
SKY SPORT reported that the three most read articles in the last month dealt with the Portuguese and that tweets that included his name reached a billion people.
According to Twitter data, since August 27 - when the deal became known - Ronaldo has written an average of 37 tweets per minute.
That means 2,200 an hour and about 53,000 a day.
When the official announcement of his signature came out, 64,321 tweets were recorded including his name within an hour.
Fans wave the figure of Ronaldo in the red uniform, Reuters
"I'm so excited, he's one of my favorite players in the world," said one United fan who managed to buy a shirt.
12 years of waiting
Tickets for the game on Saturday ran out, and hotel prices around Old Trafford went up.
Fan Ali Masud from Blackburn showed up at the training complex at six in the morning this week with a shirt with pictures of him next to Ronaldo's mother and son.
"I'm going to take a picture with him today!"
Promised, but it did not happen.
Ronaldo passed Masud in the car, who tried to run after him but was left with nothing.
Unfortunately for the English, they too will be left with nothing.
Due to the BLACKOUT law, which was born in the 1960s to protect small teams and prohibits the broadcasting of local games at 17: 15-14: 45, the game (which will open at 15:00, local time) will not be broadcast live in England.
Many attempts to change the decree were to no avail, but those who waited 12 years would be able to wait a few minutes - until the rerun.
