Tom Brady reaction showed Manchester United already have their Cristiano Ronaldo plan

It felt in some way fitting that Cristiano Ronaldo ended his difficult start to 2022 in front of one of the few sportspeople on the planet who occupies the same stratosphere.

The air that only the elites breathe would have felt a little more congested inside Old Trafford for once, with the iconic Tom Brady watching on from the directors’ box, incongruous in a plain black coat and a run-of-the-mill haircut.

Brady has always done his talking on the field and while Ronaldo has embraced the showier side of his personality and the trappings that come with it, he’s delivered just about as regularly as Brady.

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It was the American who was signed by a Glazer owned franchise and delivered immediate success with the Super Bowl in 2020. When Manchester United signed Ronaldo this summer there was a temptation to wonder whether signing ageing superstars to deliver trophies was now a strategy for all of their sporting institutions.

It’s not been quite so easy to repeat in the Premier League and after one goal in his first 10 games of 2022, Ronaldo’s time as one of football’s flag bearers looked to be drifting to a conclusion, unable to halt the decline of his club or the sense that his own powers were on the wane.

But as the 44-year-old Brady has demonstrated time and again, the true greats move to the beat of their own drum. They decide when they’re done, not the sport that thrives because of their presence. Perhaps inspired by the attendance of someone six years his senior still going strong, Ronaldo delivered a timely riposte to his own critics and to the idea that United would be better off without him this summer, abandoning a fairytale return after