The morning after Cristiano Ronaldo's departure from Real Madrid to Juventus was confirmed, the Spanish media was torn between saluting his contribution at the Bernabeu, debating why he was leaving now, and wondering how he could ever be replaced
Marca: There will never be anyone like him. Cristiano leaves, the legend of the 451 goals
Even in silhouette, his celebratory pose is instantly recognizable to sports fans across the world
He's pictured in front of the nine, elongated letters that spell out his name in an image that's generated three million likes on Instagram and hundreds of thousands of likes across Twitter and Facebook
The CR7JUVE hashtag confirms what had quickly become football's worst-kept secret
"He's called Cristiano Ronaldo and he's now officially a Bianconero," read Tuesday's announcement on the Juventus website after the 33-year-old agreed to join the Italian club from Real Madrid in a reported $ 117 million transfer
Long gone are the days when football transfers were announced with a photo of a grinning player holding up his new club's scarf
When you're Italy's biggest football team and you're paying Ronaldo a reported $ 35 million a year, you need to sweat your asset from the get go. And not just on social media - replica Juve shirts and assorted Cristiano memorabilia were flying out of the club's official store in Turin as the transfer was confirmed
"Ronaldo is a celebrity that nobody can match with 318 million followers across various platforms," Italian football expert James Horncastle told CNN Sport
"Juve is looking to monetize and leverage that to their advantage. They want a larger presence in markets that they are already in and access to markets that they are not in
Not that everyone in Italy is happy with the transfer
In fact, one Italian trade union - the Unione Sindacale di Base - has called a strike next week at the Fiat Chrysler car manufacturing plant in the southern Italian town of Melfi
Juventus' president is Andrea Angelli, whose family also has shares in the automotive giant
"Is it normal for a single person to earn millions and thousands of families do not reach the middle of the month?" questioned the USB in its statement
Traditionally Juventus has been a model of financial prudence. But the strategy has hit a bit of buffer and in the most recent annual Deloitte Money League rankings, the Bianconeri ranked 10th for the fourth year in a row. Good enough for a club that dominates Italian football, but not good enough for a club with ambitions of European domination, nay global domination
Back in January 2017, Juventus unveiled its new "designer" club crest with the sort of glitzy ceremony usually reserved for a fashion show or car launch
A cast of soccer and celebrity royalty filed into Milan's Science and Technology Museum for an event billed by the club as "Black and White and More," with three-time Oscar winner and electronic dance music pioneer Giorgio Moroder on the decks
The marketing blitz that accompanies the new logo boasted that Juve's "new visual identity turns the sport's traditional style on its head and sets about blazing a new trail." The club's president declared the logo to be "a symbol of the Juventus way of living
"Juventus is thinking about a millennial in Shanghai and a mother in Mexico - they want to become more mainstream, more pop and that was behind the redesign of the logo," added Horncastle
"They want to be bigger in the US which is a hub of popular culture
supporters as much as Juve fans
"Some supporters are now associating themselves with individual athletes as much as clubs - they are quite transferable in their loyalties
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