Cristiano Ronaldo declared his story at Real Madrid is “written” and said speculation about his future is “disrespectful” to him and the clubs involved.

Ronaldo distanced himself from rumors that he could return to the Santiago Bernabeu following Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti’s tweet earlier Tuesday that stated he’d “never considered” a reunion with the 36-year-old.

“My story at Real Madrid has been written. It’s been recorded,” the Juventus forward wrote on Instagram. “In words and numbers, in trophies and titles, in records and in headlines. It’s in the museum at the Bernabeu Stadium and it’s also in the minds of every fan of the club.”

Both Ronaldo and Ancelotti were likely responding to a claim on Spanish TV show El Chiringuito that the latter, who returned to the club in June for a second coaching stint, wanted a reunion at the Santiago Bernabeu.

“As well as this most recent episode in Spain, there have been frequent news and stories associating me with a number of clubs in many different leagues, with nobody ever being concerned about trying to find out the actual truth,” Ronaldo added.

“I’m breaking my silence now to say that I can’t allow people to keep playing around with my name,” he said. “I remain focused on my career and in my work, committed and prepared for all the challenges that I have to face. Everything else? Everything else is just talk.”

Ronaldo is in the final year of his contract at Juventus and has been linked with moves to Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, and Manchester City, according to BBC Sport. There’s also speculation the Portuguese veteran could move to another former club in Manchester United or to their northwest rivals Liverpool, Paul Doyle of The Guardian notes.

The attacker joined Juventus from Real Madrid in 2018, ending a nine-year stay in the Spanish capital. He won four Champions League crowns, two La Liga titles, and numerous other team and individual honors during his time with Real Madrid.

He also scooped up plenty of silverware during his preceding six-year stretch with Manchester United, including three Premier League successes and the first Champions League triumph of his career.

He’s won two Serie A titles, a Coppa Italia, and two Supercoppa Italianas through three full seasons at Juventus.

Gerd Muller, a legendary striker for Bayern Munich and West Germany, died Sunday at the age of 75.

Muller, nicknamed “Der Bomber,” was the last player to reach double figures in goals at a World Cup after scoring 10 at Mexico in 1970. He notched the game-winner against the Netherlands in the final four years later and netted four goals throughout that World Cup run.

He also won the 1972 European Championship with West Germany and finished that success with a tournament-high four goals.

Muller amassed 68 goals over 62 international appearances for his country.

Some of his feats at club level may never be surpassed. He scored 30-plus goals in 12 consecutive seasons for Bayern Munich, racking up a remarkable 566 goals in 607 competitive appearances for the Bavarians. He finished as the Bundesliga’s top marksman seven times, and his 365 goals in Germany’s top flight is a record.

Bayern’s Robert Lewandowski incredibly beat Muller’s long-standing mark of 40 goals in a single Bundesliga season last term.

“He would be the first to offer congratulations, to say, ‘Well done, boy. You did well,'” said Muller’s wife Uschi before Lewandowski equaled the record and then notched his 41st and final goal of the campaign a week later. Uschi Muller spoke on her husband’s behalf while he battled severe dementia in a nursing home in south Munich.

Muller won all of his club honors during his 15-year stay with Bayern Munich, a haul that included four Bundesliga titles, four DFB-Pokals, three European Cups, and one European Cup Winners’ Cup. He later served as a youth coach for the club.

“Today is a sad, dark day for FC Bayern and all its fans. Gerd Muller was the greatest striker there’s ever been, and a fine person and character of world football,” said Bayern Munich president Herbert Hainer.

“We’re all united in deep mourning with his wife Uschi as well as his family,” he continued. “FC Bayern wouldn’t be the club we all love today without Gerd Muller. His name and memory will live on forever.”

He started his career with local club TSV 1861 Nordlingen and ended his playing days with the Fort Lauderdale Strikers, a team that participated in the North American Soccer League.

Romelu Lukaku is back at Stamford Bridge.

Chelsea completed the signing of the 28-year-old Belgian striker from Inter Milan on Thursday, further bolstering their already loaded attack.

The Blues reportedly paid a club-record €115 million to re-sign a player who was on their books from 2011-14. Lukaku left the west London outfit after only 10 Premier League appearances and a loan spell at West Bromwich Albion.

The mammoth fee eclipses the initial £72 million Chelsea splashed last summer to recruit Kai Havertz from Bayer Leverkusen.

“I’m happy and blessed to be back at this wonderful club,” Lukaku said after inking a five-year contract. “It’s been a long journey for me: I came here as a kid who had a lot to learn, now I’m coming back with a lot of experience and more mature.

“The relationship I have with this club means so much to me, as you know. I have supported Chelsea as a kid and now to be back and try to help them win more titles is an amazing feeling.”

Lukaku is coming off a spectacular – and brief – stint in Serie A. He scored 47 league goals in two dominant campaigns with the Nerazzurri, leading them to their first Scudetto in over a decade last season.

Prior to his time in Italy, he had prolific tenures at Manchester United and Everton.

Lukaku initially stated that he wanted to remain with Inter but changed his tune earlier this month and reportedly asked the club’s directors to sanction a return to Chelsea. Negotiations developed quickly from there. Chelsea took advantage of the Italian club’s crippling financial situation; Inter were forced to sell Achraf Hakimi to Paris Saint-Germain in July after having already watched manager Antonio Conte depart, too.

The allure of working with Thomas Tuchel also reportedly helped sway Lukaku.

The Belgian superstar figures to slot directly into the German tactician’s starting lineup, assuming the No. 9 role and allowing Timo Werner to move into a more comfortable position playing to the left of a central striker and using his blistering pace to exploit spaces down the wing.

Having forged an impressive partnership with Lautaro Martinez at the San Siro, Tuchel will be hoping Lukaku strikes up a similar accord with Werner.

Chelsea, the reigning Champions League winners, will look to capture their first Premier League title since 2017.

It really happened. Lionel Messi, fresh off an emotional departure from Barcelona, joined Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday, inking an initial two-year contract with the nouveau-rich club. PSG are clear winners in all this, of course. Meanwhile, Barcelona, stuck in a financial crater of their own making, are obvious losers. But there are more dominoes in the wake of a signing that alters European football’s landscape. Below, we examine the other winners and losers from Messi’s move to the French capital.

Loser: Joan Laporta

The president who let Messi leave. Laporta will never be able to shake that.

You could certainly argue that Josep Maria Bartomeu and, to a lesser extent, Sandro Rosell are more culpable here; Laporta, in fairness, inherited a financial disaster that his predecessors largely created. But the current president will never escape the fact that Messi departed on his watch. Worse yet, Laporta made retaining the once wantaway superstar the primary selling point of his presidential candidacy. Keeping Messi was to be the crowning achievement of his second tenure, and he failed to deliver.

It’s irrelevant, really, whether he misjudged the economic crisis at the Camp Nou or contributed to it by making several signings this summer. It was his job to keep Messi, and instead, he’s now in Paris.

Winners: Real Madrid

In more ways than one.

The most obvious victory also applies to Atletico Madrid and every single defender in La Liga: None of them have to worry about concocting a scheme to try to shackle the most dominant attacking force the sport has ever seen. That’s certainly cause for celebration.

In the long term, Messi’s departure could have direct implications on Real Madrid in the transfer market, too. Los Blancos have long been linked with PSG superstar Kylian Mbappe, to the point where many have speculated that his move to the Spanish capital is a matter of when, not if. PSG may have unlimited funds, but even for the Qatari-backed club, keeping Mbappe without running amok of Financial Fair Play (FFP) shouldn’t be possible, even if FFP is largely a charade. After you’ve already committed tons of money to various free agents, spent €60 million on Achraf Hakimi, recently re-signed Neymar in a deal that reportedly pays the Brazilian €31 million per season, and added the most expensive player in the world on top of an already hefty wage bill, conventional wisdom suggests some kind of sacrifice has to be made.

Mbappe is slated to become a free agent next summer, and if his departure is the cost of Messi’s arrival, Real Madrid will be eternally grateful. PSG chairman Nasser Al-Khelaifi remains convinced Mbappe will stay put, but that’s far from a guarantee.

Loser: Parity

It was viewed as a victory for fans and football when the infamous Super League plot imploded amid an avalanche of backlash. What is sport without open competition, after all? And while that remains wholly true, we’re now getting a look at the alternative, and it’s … not much better?

The non-Super League world looks a whole lot like a Super League right now, except this one is comprised of only a few oligarchs and nation states masquerading as football clubs.

The gulf between the sport’s rich and poor has never been greater. State-backed clubs like PSG and Manchester City, with their unfathomable wealth, have changed the conversation, spending wildly simply because they can. When it became clear that Messi was leaving Barcelona, there were basically two, maybe three, realistic destinations. The greatest player of his generation – and perhaps of all time – didn’t have a choice. Not really. No matter how you slice it, that’s not good for the sport.

Money – especially from shadowy sources – has always been present in football. A collection of preeminent clubs have long enjoyed more wealth than others, scooping up talent and reaping the competitive advantages that go along with a loftier economic status. That isn’t new.

But this feels different, especially amid the backdrop of a pandemic that torpedoed the finances of so many proverbial heavyweights. The degree to which teams like PSG, City, and even Chelsea can blow everyone else out of the water is staggering. The top, at least, always had some semblance of parity, but we’ve surely hit another threshold now.

The Super League architects were misguided – and obviously selfish – in crafting their plan to “save” the sport. But for all the ridicule, they were right about the unsustainable direction football was, and is, heading. PSG’s ability to sign Messi, having already spent a fortune on wages for other players this summer, only highlights that truth.

Winner … sort of: Javier Tebas

Well, Tebas certainly stuck to his guns. The La Liga president asserted all along that he wouldn’t shift the goalposts and make any exceptions in order for Barcelona to register Messi’s contract. The rules are the rules, after all, even for the biggest star. True to his word, Tebas didn’t budge, and now Messi’s gone.

That’s a win in the sense that the outspoken Tebas, an extremely headstrong executive, got the best of Laporta after the pair clashed over the aforementioned Super League; Barcelona, remember, are one of the three teams still in favor of the breakaway competition that Tebas branded a “joke.”

A Pyrrhic victory, perhaps, as Tebas’ resolve has helped contribute to the loss of a megastar who drives ticket sales and helps add zeros to La Liga’s TV contracts.

Loser: Sergio Aguero

Playing with Messi, one of his oldest and dearest friends, wasn’t the sole reason Aguero signed with Barcelona as a free agent this summer, but that was clearly a huge selling point for the Argentine striker.

So much for that.

At least Aguero, who will miss the first 10 weeks of the season with an injury, has plenty of time to draw up celebratory dances with Antoine Griezmann now.

Winner: YouTube highlight reels

As we’ve already outlined, Messi’s move has all but crystalized a dangerous paradigm shift in football. But, from a strictly on-pitch perspective, there’s simply no denying that the prospect of the all-conquering 34-year-old linking up with Neymar and Mbappe is wildly exciting.

Messi and Neymar are masterful playmakers, progressing the ball and slicing up opposing backlines with their elite – and unfair – combination of dribbling and passing ability. It takes an entire defensive plan to stop one of them, never mind trying to nullify both.

And then, even if by some miracle you’re able to slow down the South American dynamos on the same day, there’s the small matter of Mbappe, the most explosive player in the world in open space. Viewers of Barcelona have long lamented the club’s inability to find someone who can run behind the defense, which in turn forces the opposition to sit deeper, thus creating more room for Messi to operate in attacking midfield areas.

Now he has Mbappe. All you can do is laugh. Or cry, if you’re another Champions League contender.

Playing all three of them together has some obvious defensive issues that Mauricio Pochettino will need to creatively solve – midfielders Idrissa Gueye, Marco Verratti, and Gini Wijnaldum will be asked to cover absurd amounts of space, for starters – but frankly, that’s a secondary concern. There really is no limit to what the three superlative stars can do in attack.

Good luck, everyone else.

Loser: Romanticism

For anyone who hoped Messi would make a fairytale return to Newell’s Old Boys after leaving Barcelona, his unveiling in Paris was the latest reminder that football is a business with little place for romance.

That’s not an indictment on Messi, either. He should absolutely seek out the best financial deal possible, especially since this is probably the last enormous contract of his career. He’s certainly earned the right to be paid handsomely; the suggestion that he should’ve played for free to stay at Barcelona was ludicrous.

Still, the cold reality of Messi at PSG is yet another indication that the most important color in football is green.

Winner: Argentina

Messi hasn’t played fewer than 2,500 league minutes in a season since the 2007-08 campaign. For someone who is constantly on the ball, running at defenders, and trying to avoid having his ankles scythed, the little Argentine has been extremely durable throughout his career.

That takes a toll, though. Even on a magician.

Yes, his game has changed over the years, and he’s become more adept at picking his spots and saving himself for decisive bursts, but the human body can only accept so much wear and tear at 34 years old. Whereas Barcelona have been entirely dependent on Messi to do everything for so long – since Neymar left, essentially – PSG and Pochettino will have the luxury of resting the veteran forward more frequently, keeping him fresh in anticipation of what should be another deep Champions League run.

That will be music to the ears of Argentina manager Lionel Scaloni ahead of the 2022 World Cup, which will almost definitely be Messi’s final – and perhaps best – chance to hoist the only accolade missing from his collection.

Loser: ‘MSN’

The most dominant attacking trio football has ever seen? That crown may be on the verge of changing hands. Pour one out for Luis Suarez.