<
        >

          Did Cristiano Ronaldo help persuade Tom Brady to come out of retirement?

          • ESPN
          Mar 14, 2022, 09:45 AM

          The VIP seats at Old Trafford are always good for star spotting, and Saturday's Premier League encounter between Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur was no exception, with legendary NFL quarterback Tom Brady the main attraction.

          Brady tweeted just after kickoff that he was excited to see the showdown between Cristiano Ronaldo and Harry Kane.

          And, as has so often been the case during a career in which he has won seven Super Bowls, the former New England Patriots man made the right call with his pick.

          Ronaldo opened the scoring with a long-range effort in the 12th minute, then found the net again seven minutes before half-time. Spurs cancelled out both efforts with goals of their own, but Ronaldo came up clutch -- just like Brady himself did so often during his storied career -- to seal United's win after 81 minutes.

          As for Kane, the self-confessed Brady fan who has expressed a wish to be an NFL kicker, did manage to convert a first-half penalty -- Brady called that too! -- but it was Ronaldo's day.

          After the game, Brady made his way down to the Old Trafford turf and caught up with the entire Man United squad, including the hat-trick hero himself.

          Ronaldo, for his part, cottoned on to something that the rest of the world would take a day to figure out.

          Ronaldo, never one to play down his own greatness, was more than happy to label himself a GOAT when he posted a picture of himself and Brady on Twitter.

          Mind you, when you've just taken your career goals tally to 807 -- potentially the most by any professional men's player ever -- then you've earned the right to shout about it.

          The meeting left us with just one question: what do GOATs talk about?

          Maybe Brady was telling Ronaldo about his own successes on English soil; in two wins with the Patriots at Wembley Stadium, he threw seven touchdown passes.

          Or maybe he was actually telling CR7 that he has been inspired to make the shock announcement that he would return to play another season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers!

          Plenty of soccer stars checked into Brady's comments to congratulation him on returning to NFL -- including Tottenham Hotspur's Harry Kane, Liverpool's Virgil van Dijk and Atletico Madrid's Antoine Griezmann.

          Did Ronaldo play a role in Brady's decision? We may never know!