Cristiano Ronaldo turned 37-year-old today, February 5, 2022, a day after he could not help Manchester United to defeat lowly rated Championship side, Middlesbrough, in an FA Cup fourth-round game.
The Portuguese football star who returned to Manchester United in August 2021 after spending 9 years at Real Madrid and three years at Juventus, had the chance to open the scoring via a spot-kick in the 20th minute of the FA Cup game, but to the dismay of many, he missed the kick.
Five minutes afterward, Jadon Sancho gave Manchester United the lead which the club surrendered in the 64th minute when Middlesbrough’s Matt Crooks scored the equalizer.
Afterward, both Manchester United and the Championship side could not score in open play. Hence, the game was forced into a penalty shootout.
Middlesbrough scored all their spot-kicks but Manchester United’s Anthony Elanga failed to slot in his own which gave the Championship side 7-8 victory on penalties at the prestigious Old Trafford.
😱 THEY'VE DONE IT 😱@Boro have knocked out @ManUtd after a tense penalty-shootout! 🤯#EmiratesFACup pic.twitter.com/tBi61134fh
— Emirates FA Cup (@EmiratesFACup) February 4, 2022
Apart from the fact that Cristiano Ronaldo failed to convert his spot-kick in the first half of the game, Bruno Fernandes had the chance to earn Manchester United the win in the last few minutes of the game but his effort hit the poll.
After Middlesbrough had knocked out Manchester United from the FA Cup, coach Ralf Rangnick refused to mention the fact that Ronaldo missed a penalty but did not forget the golden opportunity Bruno had to give United the desired victory.
”The chance that Bruno had, if he had 10 chances like that in a game, he would score nine of them”, the coach said during the post-match press conference.
”Today he hit the post and I think he tried to place that ball almost too accurately into the corner of the goal.
”In the end, things like that can happen. Of course, he didn’t do that on purpose and for now, our full focus must go on the other two competitions.”
Despite Ronaldo’s disappointing outing in the FA Cup game, Manchester United did not fail to wish the 5 time Ballon d’Or winner a happy birthday via their verified Twitter page.
Wishing @Cristiano a happy birthday 🎊#MUFC pic.twitter.com/Hgudx5XQY6
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) February 5, 2022
At the time of publishing this report, Cristiano Ronaldo had not taken to any of his social media pages to share any birthday pictures or messages. The reason for that could be due to his failure to help Manchester United beat lowly rated Middlesbrough to progress in this season’s FA Cup campaign.
Even his pregnant fiancee, Georgina Rodriguez who has been busy promoting her Netflix Decoseries, had not mentioned anything about Ronaldo’s birthday on social media at the time of publishing this report.
