The last time Cristiano Ronaldo played in the Europa League it was still called the UEFA Cup and nobody outside of Portugal had yet heard of Jose Mourinho — or Ronaldo, for that matter.
The then 17-year-old's sojourn into Europe's B-list competition lasted two games and an aggregate defeat to Partizan Belgrade in September 2002. That year's competition would won by Mourinho's Porto, beating Celtic in the final, and almost 20 years on Ronaldo has never lowered himself to those standards again.
A month earlier Ronaldo had made his Champions League debut against Inter Milan, with Sporting losing that tie as well, which is why they dropped into the UEFA Cup. On August 14, 2002, Ronaldo was up against Javier Zanetti and Christian Vieri and neither had yet turned 30.
