The northern sky is dimmer with Cristiano Ronaldo's proposed £80m move from Manchester United to Real Madrid, but broken hearts are fewer than expected. About the only prize not claimed by the Fifa World Player of the Year in his six years in England was the adoration of the wider public, who loved his skills but not his ways.
Nor will his team-mates necessarily be sporting black armbands in their opulent holiday villas. One United player is known to have complained that "it's all about him" after Ronaldo's moody display during and after United's heavy defeat by Barcelona in last month's Champions League final in Rome. Insiders say he had become difficult to deal with. All spring you could sense him pulling away from Sir Alex Ferguson's patriarchal grip in search of the next great phase of his life.
Premier League football will be more prosaic next season without the 23-year-old Madeiran's grace and ingenuity. Opposition supporters have lost a bete noir. England fans never forgave him for winking his approval of Wayne Rooney's sending off in the World Cup quarter-final against Portugal. Goalkeepers' sleep will no longer be haunted by fear of death by Ronaldo thunderbolt. And United will plunge a hand back into the stardust of youth in search of a glamorous replacement.
Ronaldo's sky-lighting qualities now shift to Spain, where Real also captured Brazil's best player, Kaká, this week, in football's equivalent of a Harrods trolley dash that cost them £136m. United's supporters will be aggrieved to see Ronaldo go. Unlike Eric Cantona, though, he will not depart across a carpet of bouquets. On the scroll of Old Trafford legends, Ronaldo was something of an anti-hero who never quite seemed properly located in the millionaire's row of Wilmslow and Alderley Edge. When he drove his Ferrari into a tunnel wall at Manchester airport it was as if fast-lane flash was banging against the concrete of the club's less showy ethos.
English football is institutionally mendacious but there remains a deep antipathy to anti-Corinthian conduct on the pitch: specifically, diving and feigning injury, which are seen as violations of the game's old warrior code. Those who looked closer will have noted that Ronaldo tended to employ theatricality in the face of persistent intimidation. It was partly a survival tool, as well as a means of gaining an advantage. But to many English eyes it marked him out as a thespian who conned referees.
Selflessness is a guiding trait of Ferguson's United. The brotherhood is all. David Beckham discovered the limits of Fergie's tolerance for self-promotion when the manager kicked a boot that struck him above the eye and then sold him to Real Madrid. What is Spain's greatest club: a dumping ground for Ferguson's rejects and rebels?
United are a collective where a siege mentality prevails. Real Madrid, on the other hand, ooze individual glamour. From the great title-winning sides of Puskas and Di Stefano, they have chased the game's real aristocrats. Their Bernabéu stadium is the round-ball Prado. These days, commerce drives them on. With Kaká and Ronaldo in harness, Real shoot back to the top of the international glitter league, acquiring huge new earning potential in far-off markets.
This magnetism exerted an inexorable pull on Ronaldo, who craved the heat and light of Iberia, where he first emerged with Sporting Lisbon, as well as Madrid's pristine all-white kit. He joins a team eclipsed by the brilliance of Barcelona. He leaves one too. United fans still loyal to him will be saddened that his last contribution was to shine for 10 minutes against Barcelona in Rome and then disappear from the fray.
His 42-goal season in 2007-08 deserves veneration as one of the greatest in the English game. George Best suddenly had a rival as United's most potent goalscoring midfielder. But there was never the same warmth between audience and performer. To the Stretford End, Ronaldo was a star shooting across the firmament rather than one glowing for all eternity. They sensed his restlessness and felt the pull of Madrid.When he grabbed and then flung away his tracksuit top after being substituted in the Manchester derby, he was really throwing away his United contract.
With consummate stagecraft, Cantona simply rose and left. He obeyed the voice that said his powers had waned to the point where he could no longer feel invincible pulling on the red shirt. There was no "better" place to go, unless you count beach football and the movies.
Looking for Eric, the Ken Loach film starring Cantona, opens today, and United fans will flood to cinemas for solace. Looking for Cristiano? Try Spain.
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