It's all escalating rather quickly at Real Madrid as Cristiano Ronaldo gets linked with Manchester United and Chelsea

Most transfer rumors tend to fall somewhere between "probably not" and "LOL."  So many of them are generated every single day that the vast majority turn out to be idle chatter, simply as a matter of basic economics and mathematics.  Every once in a while, you get an outlier.  Sometimes that's an outlier in the "oh, wow, this might actually happen" sense.  And then sometimes, it's an outlier that ... well ... let's just show it to you.

I mean.  Come.  On.  Really?  The trophy for most outrageous transfer story of the week goes to the Daily Star.  Again.  Their trophy cabinet is more full than ours!  It actually might be less outrageous if they meant the real Ronaldo, rather than this newer, slicker, skinnier edition.

But let's entertain this £70m flight of fancy for a second.  We've got a bit of time.

The story goes that a certain former Chelsea Interim manager and soon-to-be, rather inexplicably, Real Madrid manager has decided to make Gareth Bale the key man in his new-look Galacticos side.  Cristiano Ronaldo (30) is of course five-years older than Bale (25) so perhaps there's decent intent here to future-proof Real Madrid a bit, but after the season just past, this sure seems like an odd choice.  Regardless, this is the story that the likes of the Telegraph are hawking.

Cristiano, playing the vain, egotistical superstar role (perhaps not a stretch, mind you) is sure to not be happy with this new arrangement and thus might be willing to reunite with ... Manchester United?  Jose Mourinho?  One of those is probably more likely than the other.  Hint: it's not Mourinho.  Let's just say the two didn't part on the happiest of terms, and while time can heal many wounds (see: Mourinho and Abramovich), it's only been two years since the well-publicized broken relationship helped bring an end to Jose's time in the Spanish capital.

But here we are regardless, at the start of a summer-long Saga of Ronnie.  Brace yourselves.