Portugal is out of Euro 2020, so the Ronaldo rumor mill is about to go bonkers

Belgium ousted Portugal from Euro 21020 on Sunday night. It was a result that many probably expected, but thought still might not actually take place seeing as Portugal has one of the greatest goal scorers to ever play the game on its roster, a guy who has a reputation for putting his team on his back in big games and getting them results.

Cristiano Ronaldo, however, did not get Portugal the result they needed.

And now, as the Italian media licks its collective lips at the ensuing amount of papers they will be able to sell to the masses, we are that much closer to knowing what Ronaldo’s decision regarding his Juventus career will be.

Will he play out the final year of his contract with Juventus and try to get them back to the top of Serie A before he heads to his next adventure? Or, knowing that Juventus might not be the Champions League contender he hoped they would be when he first arrived in the summer of 2018, will Ronaldo bolt to Paris Saint-Germain or Manchester United this summer?

These are the things that have been out there for weeks, so it’s not like this is anything new or earth shattering. There are only so many options as to where he could go even before a potential departure is discussed with his current club, which obviously means the chances that Ronaldo stays at Juventus are relatively high as compared to some of the other players on its roster.

Either way, we’re about to hear a lot about it over the coming days, weeks and however long it takes for Ronaldo to either announce his intentions or for some sort of resolution to happen and Juventus’ website risks crashing over a potential Ronaldo sale post.

From say, the beginning of this work week until that day, the Italian media is going to have plenty to say on the matter. Same goes for the Spanish press, the English press and just about anybody in between who puts out transfer rumors on a regular basis. That is just the world we live in these days, and when it involves Ronaldo, there’s going to be eyeballs on it no matter if he’s leaving or staying.

And the thing that will fuel all of this is that because we really have no idea which way this thing will go as we sit here on the day Portugal got bounced from the Euros, there’s going to be just an incredible amount of speculation.

So much. So damn much.

As we know, with Ronaldo’s massive €31 million net salary, there are only a few teams that can even entertain the idea of possibly signing Ronaldo, let alone enter into negotiations with Juventus over the next few weeks, because of just how much space he will take up on the payroll. Remember, this is a Ronaldo that, despite his age, just led Serie A in goals, so it’s not like he’s going to be taking any big-time discounts.

PSG can afford him. Man United can probably afford him. Those seem to be the two most likely destinations unless Real Madrid somehow come out of nowhere and try to bring Ronaldo back to Spain.

But this will all be conjecture until we know for sure what is happening. And right now, well, we have no idea what is happening.

The only certain in all of this is that Ronaldo’s decision was going to come after Portugal’s run at the Euros was over and done with. Well, now that it is in fact over and done with, it really is going to be an absolute cluster-you-know-what when it comes to rumors of where his future lies.

And no matter what the outcome is, let’s all hope that it happens as soon as it possibly can so that Max Allegri can actually know what his team is going to look like and prepare them as much as he can as he waits for Juve’s other Euro participants to slowly trickle in to Turin once more. (Reports are that Allegri wants to start preseason training on July 14 or 15, by the way.)