God Only Knows...

New comments from Ronaldo get blown out of proportion today. Our friendly gets looked at by non other than Pele! Hooray! And the war of words with Spurs (kind of) continues.

This Guardian article is pretty inoffensive in its reporting of Ronaldo's comments:

"I've had hundreds of questions about Manchester United and Real Madrid," he told ESPN. "What do you want me to say? That I'm going or I'm staying? I don't know about the future, only God knows it. I can't say any more. Great players are always hounded by great clubs. It's a normal situation. I have always been hounded, not only this year."
"I want to be happy regardless of where I play," he added. "I can be happy everywhere, if I am with people I like, if I am animated, motivated. Am I motivated to continue at United? I am always motivated. I am ambitious and I want to always improve. I don't know the future but I will be motivated."

To me, this is a bit of a step away from his previous comments on the issue, especially the last bit. To be fair, it's not exactly all the way to a full on commitment to the club, but, given his comments previously, would it be realistic to expect that? This article also contains some quotes from Carlos on how hard a decision it was to leave Man Utd.
The Telegraph report on Ronaldo is a whole other kettle of fish:

Cristiano Ronaldo has spurned his first opportunity to repair his relationship with Sir Alex Ferguson, while Real Madrid president Ramon Calderon assured the Portuguese winger's proposed move to the Bernabeu was "sorted".

Ronaldo, who is on holiday in Los Angeles, was interviewed for the first time since the Manchester United manager revealed details of their meeting in Portugal last week.

Note the logical contradiction here - this is Ronaldo's "first oppotunity to repair his relationship" with Sir Alex; the pair met in Portugal last week. As the meeting was reported to be amicable where is the need to repair? Wasn't that meeting the "first opportunity to repair his relationship" with Sir Alex?

So why is Pele considered such a footballing sage? Great player and everything but since when has he had an interesting opinion on anything? He's a just so middle of the road, saying whatever he thinks people want to hear, never risking being interesting.
And so Rooney gets a little frustrated in a preseason friendly, and Pele has the remarkable insight that he should maybe try and control his temper:

With 20 minutes remaining, Rooney was taken off by Sir Alex Ferguson, the United manager, protecting him from the possibility of a sending-off.

That would be no surprise to Pelé, who believes that Rooney’s brittle temperament is hampering his development. The forward has worked to curb his temper, but the Brazil legend believes that he needs to work harder.

“I like Wayne Rooney, but he hasn’t reached the peak of Euro 2004 again,” Pelé said. “He had two or three very good years and then lost a little bit in his performances – I don’t know why. When he is tangling with opponents, Rooney has to learn how to defend himself – not attack the opponent. If you can protect yourself from challenges, it will be easier to keep your temper.”

The way this is presented it would seem like Pele said this before the game, where, as far as I understand it his comments were a result of the game, turning Pele from soothsayer to nothing sayer. Indeed the Times report says, "The ball does not break for him, the frustration grows and suddenly Wayne Rooney boils over." Doesn't sound like it had anything to with any challenge from an opponent...

The already tiresome Spurs saga continues:

The Tottenham chairman, Daniel Levy, is confident that he has all the evidence necessary should Sir Alex Ferguson continue with his threat to sue over Spurs' remarkably robust condemnation of the Manchester United manager's conduct in the Dimitar Berbatov transfer saga. Tottenham have what they consider overwhelming evidence that Berbatov has spoken to Ferguson without their permission.

Whatever.