Everyone, it Seems, Wants Ronaldo (The Fat One, Not the Pretty One. This Time, Anyway.)

By: Martha | January 15th, 2007

I'm fat. But still, oddly, quite agile. Now that David Beckham and Luis Figo have both left their clubs for greener (read: cash-laden, and nicer for aging footballers) pastures, Ronaldo seems eager to follow in their footsteps. If you believe all the various press reports of his destination, he’s going to be very busy, what with playing for about 10 clubs at once.

On one hand, he’s set to join Figo at Al Ittihad, a club with which he’s reportedly in talks. On the other, he’s going to Milan (a club that has had crummy luck with past-it Brazilians). Despite insisting last week that his club wasn’t going to splash big cash on anyone not named Oddo during the winter transfer window, supremo Adriano Galliani recently revealed that “Under certain conditions [Milan] could sign Ronaldo.” If those conditions involve anything other that total insanity, there might be reason for concern here — Milan have shown impressive self-control thus far in resisting the urge to buy for the sake of buying, but the arrival of Ronaldo would be a clear sign that all that reason was just an aberration. On a third hand, there’s alway still Juve, a club whose name has been recently linked with Ronaldo’s — though whether that’s a sign of actual talks or just an eager press corp is anyone’s guess.

Me, I’ve got my fingers crossed that he doesn’t end up back in Italy. A Milan signing would be more spectacle than that substance, and Juve surely have some better, younger options in their giant notebook of transfer targets. If they want to challenge for the Scudetto next year, they need reliable production, not someone everyone is just hoping might be great again.