Although Cristiano Ronaldo, George Best, Eric Cantona, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic all played for Manchester United, the English club remains the most overrated and bandwagon football club in the whole world.
If you were seven years old and looking to buy some football gear, then you’d buy Manchester United’s jersey, if the store was sold out of all the Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus, and Bayern Munich jerseys.
Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus, Paris Saint-Germain, and Bayern Munich play one-to-two touch football, but Manchester United play three-to-four touch football.
Recently, three of the Top 10 footballers in the whole world were deemed flops and rejects at Manchester United. Their names are Alexis Sanchez, Ángel Di Maria, and Paul Pogba.
What’s the common denominator here?
Manchester United.
Clearly, Manchester United doesn’t have the critical mass of one-to-two touch footballers to compete against elite clubs in the Champions League or the Premier League for that matter because all three of the aforementioned players are world-class players that any club or manager would sign in a heartbeat. It simply can’t be that all three of these players are to blame.
Di Maria, Pogba, and Sánchez are all world-class players who found themselves playing for teammates at Manchester United who couldn’t play the ball back to them first-time like those players’ countrymen and ex-club teammates could. Sánchez used to have to work the mines as a child in Chile, and he became a world-class player, then he got to United, only to have clueless fans call him a flop after starring for Chile, Udinese, Barcelona, and Arsenal.
Before anyone gets too angry, it’s worth noting that Manchester United have several young elite players who are English and who play world-class football. Their names are Marcus Rashford, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, and possibly Mason Greenwood. This writer would go as far as saying that Rashford is more technically-gifted and creative than any English footballer ever.
Manchester United should be better than they are. Despite their fans claims of their club being synonymous with beautiful football under Sir Alex Ferguson, they have never displayed the same quality of beautiful football as Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus, or Bayern Munich. Manchester United literally sold or loaned three of their best players to Inter Milan, which is a club they believed wasn’t a competitor of theirs, despite the fact that Inter Milan are consistently a Champions League club. In fact, Inter Milan are so storied and big that Brazilian Ronaldo played for them.
Any time Ronaldo played for your club, you know your club is elite. Brazilian Ronaldo wouldn’t have come within 100 miles of agreeing to sign for United, and in fact several years ago, Ronaldo said that he had zero respect for Ferguson after the former United boss called him “Fat Ronaldo.” Just the fact that Ferguson would call Ronaldo “Fat Ronaldo” shows you the lack of respect for non-Premier League football prevalent in the United Kingdom.
This incident is a perfect microcosm of the gap between an appreciation of elite football and the type of football promoted and praised in the United Kingdom. Such a disparaging remark about a player like Ronaldo is a great example of how a real, refined appreciation of top-level football is missing in the United Kingdom.
Consider the fact that, when Alexis Sanchez signed with Arsenal from Barcelona, the English press ran articles entitled, “Who is Alexis Sanchez?” The premise of the article essentially being that Sánchez hadn’t played in the Premier League yet, so he was unproven in their minds. This mentality has been on full display with United’s fanbase who described Sanchez, Pogba, and Di Maria as flops. All three of these players can’t be flops, especially since Di Maria and Sánchez are two of the best forwards in the world and Pogba is the most complete and technically-skilled midfielder in the world.
Another world-class Chilean footballer highlights the gap between truly top football clubs and Manchester United. Arturo Vidal is still one of the top midfielders in the world, and his club resume demonstrates how super elite players frequently avoid the Premier League and Manchester United all together. The Chilean Number 8 began his career with the Santiago, Chile giants Colo-Colo before going on to play for Bayer Leverkusen, Juventus, Bayern Munich, and Barcelona. Vidal played in the Bundesliga, Serie A, and La Liga, but he hasn’t played in the Premier League. One could argue that players of Vidal’s level only play for clubs like Manchester United for insane amounts of money when they have no other options, which is to say that Manchester United are good, but not as good as they think.
Recently, the young striker prodigy, Erling Haaland, told Manchester United, “thanks but no thanks,” as he elected to sign for Borussia Dortmund, which is in a better league, the Bundesliga. Don’t forget that Germany have won four World Cups, and they produce better football than the United Kingdom.
If you are looking for empirical evidence of how United isn’t the biggest club in the world, look no further than Champions League trophies. Real Madrid have 10 Champions League trophies, and Manchested United have three Champions League trophies. That’s a huge discrepancy. How can Manchester United be the biggest club in the world if they have seven fewer Champions League trophies than Real Madrid?
United’s best player ever was arguably Cristiano Ronaldo who only happened to play for United because Ryan Giggs and other players supposedly convinced the club to sign him after a game against Ronaldo. United’s scouts didn’t get Ronaldo before that game, and again it was the players who convinced the club to sign Ronaldo after the game.
The very best players in the world come largely from South America, and you never hear of Brazilian and Argentinean players dreaming of playing for United. They always want to play for one of the Spanish or Italian giants. In fact, the only reason that any South American footballers play in the Premier League is the obscene amount of money thrown their way. Gabriel Jesus only agreed to play for Manchester City in the Premier League because of coach Pep Guardiola.
How can United by the biggest club in the world, if the best players don’t grow up dreaming of playing for it?
Let no one say anymore that Manchester United is the biggest club in the world, and don’t forget that Pelé, Diego Maradona, Ronaldo, Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldinho Gaúcho, and Lionel Messi never even played in the Premier League.
One could argue that the Premier League is where the most technically-gifted and flashy players lose their soul. It certainly stole Mesut Özil’s soul. Before he was amazing and free at Real Madrid, and then he went to Arsenal where they killed his spirit and pushed him to pose for photos with that hate-monger Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who makes Donald Trump look like a Disney character. Özil was one of the masters of the much-maligned Jabulani ball at the 2010 World Cup. Özil is a world-class footballer who now plays with lifeless, cardboard cutouts at Arsenal, who are even worse than Manchester United.
Even Liverpool lucked their way into a Champions League trophy last season thanks to all of the top teams being out of the tournament, and this season Liverpool were absolutely rocked and outclassed by Atletico Madrid who taunted Liverpool to their face. Now isn’t the time to criticize Pep Guardiola as a coach given the circumstances, and my heart goes out to him at this devastating time.
The point of this article isn’t how the different Premier League teams stack up against each other. The point is that Manchester United are nothing compared to the actual top clubs who play in the better European leagues with more technical players who perform better in the Champions League and in World Cups. Manchester United fans don’t just say that their club is the best in the Premier League. They claim that it’s the biggest in the whole world.
Manchester United are definitely a top club, but it’s inaccurate to say that they are the biggest club in the world. Everyone knows that Real Madrid and Barcelona are the best clubs in the world, and thinking that Manchester United are bigger than Bayern Munich and Juventus is just pure ignorance.
Saying that Manchester United are the biggest club in the world is like saying LeBron James is better than Michael Jordan at basketball because when did LeBron even pass Kobe Bryant?
The two most successful clubs in world football are Real Madrid and AC Milan. Milan have seven Champions League titles to Real Madrid’s 10. When did Manchester United leap frog Real Madrid and AC Milan?