Cristiano is coming back to Camp Nou before Messi
EUROPA LEAGUE
The Manchester United striker will face Barça in the Europa League, but Messi hasn’t crossed paths with his former team since his departure
Manchester United signs one of its stars but forgets about Cristiano
- Xavier Bosch
xavierbosch.cat
As usual, Barcelona’s path in Europa League has led the team to the hardest rival available. Of course, Manchester United might think the same, if they could choose, they would avoid FC Barcelona and Lewandowski. So much talking about Messi going back to Camp Nou, and it turns out that CR7 will step foot in the mythical stadium before Messi. Although Ronaldo isn’t the player he used to be, he has a knack for scoring in Camp Nou, he’s scored 14 goals in the stadium, 12 with Real Madrid and 2 with Juventus. The Europa League draw comes in an eventful week for Barcelona after Piqué’s retirement, and it seems that fate wanted to play him a prank by pitting his two former teams against each other. He won the Champions League with Manchester United despite not playing much and then won three with Barça as a key member of the team.
Facing off against Manchester United will bring Joan Laporta some memories. His second Champions League trophy, the one Guardiola won in 2009, was in Rome against United with Cristiano Ronaldo as the star before he arrived at Real Madrid. Man U has dominated Barça when they play two games. They faced each other in the Champions League in April 2008, the first match was an 0-0 tie, but the second ended 1-0 with a goal by Paul Scholes that pushed Barça out of the tournament. That match brought the infamous moment of Laporta having some choice words for the referee Herbert Fandel. He saw a clip of his reaction days later during an interview and he uttered: “I don’t recognize myself.”
