As Ronaldo rises, Figo can see sunset

The first sporting eclipse of 2007 might be a desert mirage.

In the last week of the old year, Luís Figo, one of Europe's finest players of the past decade, was widely reported to be on his way to wind down his career in the desert after "signing" a contract with the Saudi Arabian champion club Al-Ittihad.

At the same time, Cristiano Ronaldo, his heir apparent in Portuguese terms, was in such form over Christmas that it seemed the transition from the old to the new was finally at hand.

"It's official now," announced Hamad Al Sanie, the team manager of Al-Ittihad. "Figo will arrive in Jeddah on 5 January when he'll join the team."

Nobody had told Massimo Moratti, the owner of Inter Milan, which had Figo on contract until the end of this season. And during the year-end rush, nobody informed the media that Moratti, who can be quite the persuasive patrician when he wants to be, was working on his player.

And, though the news has yet to reach the Red Sea, it seems that Figo and family will remain in Milan where his deal has been extended well into 2008.

Once the star dust settles on this winter's tale, the reality will be that Figo's fine class and his enduring ability to change games at a stroke of his right foot are qualities that are not yet ready to be pensioned off to a lesser league.

Used sparingly, Figo has the experience that clubs dare not lightly let go."You don't cling to great players," I recall Helmut Schön, the doyen of German coaches saying 30 years ago. "They cling to you."

Moratti knows what that meant.

The wisdom of great players can still make the difference. Younger guys can do the running, but the mind, the intelligence to know when and how to alter a situation is sometimes best served by those who have been there and done it.

There was a time when soccer players eased the pain of encroaching years by migrating to the United States. Today, as the Al-Ittihad attempt to lure Figo showed, there are alternative flight paths.

Neither the Inter president's intervention, nor the Arabian reported offer which the club says is $8 million for 17 months for Figo's final fling, disguise the fact that, at 34, his eclipse is nigh.

The once explosive pace gives way to something more sedate. Figo can still trick a defender, as you would expect from an old timer with 127 Portuguese appearances and a career decorated in honors for Sporting Lisbon, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Inter.

One day, perhaps soon, he will shuffle off toward the desert sun. Meanwhile the light that once bathed Figo, already shines on Ronaldo.

The Manchester United winger is 21. He began to eclipse Figo at the World Cup, where both played well. Yet Ronaldo became cast in England as the villain who got Wayne Rooney red carded in Gelsinkirchen.

Commentators who should know better wanted a scapegoat for England's defeat. They couldn't blame Figo — who incidentally United tried to sign in exchange for David Beckham five years ago. They wouldn't blame Rooney, even though stamping his foot into the groin of Ricardo Carvalho on the ground was his own foul act.

So they blamed Ronaldo for running to the referee to protest, and then winking when he saw the red card that any decent referee would have brandished anyway. Immature followers of English soccer have targeted Ronaldo ever since. Each time he plays away from Manchester, including the January 1 tied contest at Newcastle, the winger is booed every time he touches the ball.

His initial reaction last summer had been to say that he would rather join Real Madrid which was courting him. Ferguson dispatched Carlos Quieroz, his Portuguese assistant, to Portugal to talk Ronaldo round. Few missions could have been more beneficial.

Time after time, Ronaldo has been United's man of the match. His tendency to show the ball to a defender, tease him, drag it back, step over it a few times, was deemed by many to be arrogant. His habit of going to ground as if hit by sniper fire was detested in English stadiums.

Yet those excesses of a youth have lessened as the God-given gifts have flourished. United, and Portugal, are benefiting now from the maturing of the boy from Madeira.

In some respects, Ronaldo becomes a little more like Figo with every passing day. Rooney has "forgiven" him, and struggles now to be as valuable to United as Ronaldo.

Figo has learned to live with the fact that his time is waning, the new generation is beginning to fly. When Portugal lost the World Cup semi-final to France, one of the most symbolic moments of 2006 was Figo swapping shirts, and embraces, with Zinédine Zidane, hid former Real Madrid team-mate.

Their era was almost done. If only Zidane had not departed with that grotesque butt in the final. If only Figo had not been labeled "Pesetero," money grabber, by Barcelona when he quit there for Madrid.

Figo, now a father to three girls, handed over his mantle to Ronaldo after the World Cup. And Ronaldo will, in time, be Portugal's captain. He has emerged out of a troubled year to realize that sporting notoriety is a love-hate relationship.

If you are that talented, it's a game. Enjoy the cheers and show those who jeer that they spur you rather than daunt you.

Some of the boos in English soccer have been silenced by the six goals in three games Ronaldo scored for his club during Christmas week. Some critics, have been quieted, because there is clear end product now to Ronaldo's dancing feet, his expression of sheer joy in his own talent.

His career is as much ahead of him as Figo's is becoming past tense. That's life. That's the cycle of renewal that all of us face.

Luís Filipe Madeira Caeiro Figo has earned his page in Wikipedia, even though the Web site prefaces his entry with the note: "This article is about the footballer. For the organization FIGO, see International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics."

Well, we do understand that soccer players of this ilk are born, not made. Alex Ferguson knew that when he paid $24 million for Ronaldo as a teenager. He knew it when the World Cup imbroglio broke and Portugal, with Figo on one wing and Ronaldo on the other, knocked England out.

From Manchester to Milan, even to Jeddah, there are millions of reasons to march to your own drum, and bank accordingly.

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