Former Manchester United striker Cristiano Ronaldo reportedly wants to leave Al-Nassr after only five months in Saudi Arabia.
The Portuguese international forced an exit from the Red Devils last November following his controversial interview with Piers Morgan.
Ronaldo slated the Premier League club from top to bottom; saying he does not respect manager Erik ten Hag while taking shots at Ralf Rangnick and Wayne Rooney.
This left United with no choice but to cut ties with their club legend, meaning he went to the World Cup with Portugal while being unattached at club level.
He probably went into the interview with Morgan expecting to have a move to an elite European club lined up, but there were no takers.
This meant Ronaldo moved to Saudi Arabia, which he insisted was always the plan after he turned down “many clubs” across Europe, in Brazil, the United States and Australia.
It has not been plain sailing for the 38-year-old, who has suffered semi-final defeats with Al-Nassr in the King’s Cup and Saudi Super Cup.
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12 goals in as many games in the Saudi Pro League is a decent return, especially after he only found the back of the net once in 10 Premier League games for United this term.
And according to El Nacional, Ronaldo ‘will not last much longer in Saudi Arabia’.
The 38-year-old is apparently finding it ‘tremendously complicated to adapt to such a different country, and with such a closed culture’.
Another ‘major obstacle’ is the ‘language barrier’ which has contributed to the former Real Madrid forward struggling to ‘acclimatise to his new club’.
It might have been mentioned that Ronaldo turned down “many clubs” for Al-Nassr, though this report says ‘his priority at all times was to stay in Europe’, which he could not do because of ‘a lack of offers’, giving him ‘no choice but to go to Asia’.
Ronaldo’s ‘intention’ is to return to Real Madrid after spending nine years there.
He ‘misses’ those days ‘very much’ and has since ‘regret’ leaving Los Blancos for Juventus in 2018 and is ‘desperate’ to go back where he felt his ‘most comfortable and happy’.
Ronaldo ‘offered himself’ to Madrid before joining Al-Nassr, but was ‘rejected’ by club president Florentino Perez and manager Carlo Ancelotti.
He even ‘tried his luck contacting’ Atletico Madrid president Enrique Cerezo and manager Diego Simeone.
It is claimed that the Madrid and United legend ‘was close’ to joining Atletico, but the club’s fans were against the signing which forced Cerezo to pull the plug.
There is some good news for Ronaldo, who has been ‘offered’ a job at Real Madrid! Unfortunately for him, the role is ‘not as a player’.
Perez will never refuse Ronaldo work at the Bernabeu but will ‘obviously’ not give him a role in the playing squad because the president ‘considers that it is a cycle that should be considered closed’.
He would prefer to give Ronaldo the role of a club ambassador, or as part of the sports organisation chart, the report states.
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