Manchester United have the perfect plan for Cristiano Ronaldo next season

The last time Cristiano Ronaldo played in the Europa League it was still called the UEFA Cup and nobody outside of Portugal had yet heard of Jose Mourinho — or Ronaldo, for that matter.

The then 17-year-old's sojourn into Europe's B-list competition lasted two games and an aggregate defeat to Partizan Belgrade in September 2002. That year's competition would won by Mourinho's Porto, beating Celtic in the final, and almost 20 years on Ronaldo has never lowered himself to those standards again.

A month earlier Ronaldo had made his Champions League debut against Inter Milan, with Sporting losing that tie as well, which is why they dropped into the UEFA Cup. On August 14, 2002, Ronaldo was up against Javier Zanetti and Christian Vieri and neither had yet turned 30.

READ MORE: Elanga tells United boss Ten Hag where to play him

This is a roundabout way of saying this was a long time ago. Since those two UEFA Cup appearances that season, there have been 187 games in the Champions League for Ronaldo and 141 goals, but that run is over, for now, and perhaps forever.

United's failure to qualify for next season's competition has left Ronaldo on the outside looking in, but so far there has been no indication he wants to leave Old Trafford despite the absence from the Champions League and the inevitable knock-on effects that means the Ballon d'Or will be out of reach.

The 37-year-old has at least one more year left on his United contract and, if he remains at the club as expected, then he will be a big part of Erik ten Hag's plans for next season. The Dutchman has already labelled his centre forward a "giant" and United will surely rely on his goals once again.

The question now is whether he will add to those two appearances