Today I feel just a little older, the greatest forward of all-time and my idol as a kid growing up Ronaldo Luis Nazario de Lima -- you may know him better as simply "Ronaldo" -- has retired.
For me there is absolutely no question, the 34-year-old Brazilian is the best to ever lace them up with the job to score goals. Akin to when the top playmaker would receive the No. 10 jersey because Pele wore the number proudly on the back of bright yellow Brazilian jersey, for generations to come when teams hand out the No. 9 jersey to their top forward it will be because of the original Ronaldo.He is the all-time top World Cup goal scorer with 15. Here's a youtube clip of each glorious strike.
He has won two World Cup trophies -- yes that is right 2, he was 17 at the time Brazil won in the U.S. in 1994 although he did not play in the tournament, and then scored eight times en route to lifting the Jules Rimmet trophy in 2002. He was the first player to win the FIFA player of the year award three times ('96, '97, '02), only to be matched later by the great Zinedine Zidane. Nike married itself to Brazil thanks in large part to Ronaldo back in 1996 using the Brazilian as the outfitters centerpiece in Nike's campaign for years to come, just remember the R9 commercials, and to this day Brazil still wears Nike kits and uses Nike as its outfitter. And he's also responsible for the worst hair cut I've ever seen during the World Cup -- his 2002 decision to leave a triangular-shaped patch of hair on the top of his head in the knockout portion of the tournament, ouch.
But getting back to business, his goal-scoring record when healthy unmatched. All you need to do is look at a year like 1996-97, the only season he played at Barcelona, Ronaldo lit La Liga on fire scoring 34 goals in 37 league matches, until the 2008-09 season, no one touched that mark, and during that year he scored 47 times in 49 matches in all competitions. He scored 62 times for Brazil, just an astounding figure, only topped by the greatest player of all-time with Pele's 77.
At the top of his game Ronaldo had breakaway speed -- a gear no-one could touch when he took it to the next level -- incredible power -- he had the ability to go through multiple challenges absorbing contact without needing the showmanship or diving as we call it now that so many players partake in currently -- and alien talent -- quite simply he invented moves that other top players in the world even now cannot perfect. He was in essence the perfect forward.
But of course he was not perfect. Injuries too often halted what was a budding career early on. At just the age of 23 he ruptured the tendon in his knee. Then trying to return too soon after just five months recovery time seven minutes into his first comeback performance he suffered the same injury. Remember Oguchi Onyewu went through the same injury a year ago this past October was a shadow of himself eight months later at the World Cup, and he may never be the same player. Ronaldo was certainly not. The speed and burst, the ability to accelerate to the next level was gone, but he still was fast enough and the talent never waned.
However, it was not long before he began battling weight issues. Even when he was scoring eight goals at the 2002 tournament in Japan/South Korea he looked a smidge pudgy and then in 2006 when he still scored three times to break the all-time World Cup record, Brazilian fans were calling for him to be benched saying he was a hindrance on the team because of a lack of fitness. But who was going to sit the great Ronaldo.
We also can't forget one of the most baffling incidents in World Cup final history. In 1998 France, Brazil were heavy favorites to win back-to-back championships largely in part to Ronaldo, who was playing at a level beyond anyone. The forward took his team to the final against the host home country, but then France utterly dominated Brazil 3-0 and Ronaldo looked like a ghost on the field. It later came out that he had suffered a seizure less than 24 hours before the match without any primary cause being determined. In fact Ronaldo had been pulled from the starting lineup just 72 minutes before the match only to be reslotted after he got to the stadium and announced himself fit. But clearly he was not as several neurological doctors addressed in the aftermath, and Zidane was the one that would shine in front of a home audience scoring two headed goals.
I don't want to dwell on the negative though because for me he was so special to watch play, and when I think back over the years that I have been a fan of the beautiful game there are four players that have separated themselves in my mind as the greatest players of their generation - Zidane, Ronaldinho, Cristiano Ronaldo, and the original Ronaldo.
I've said lately that Cristiano possesses more overall ability than any player that I've seen, and that may still be true because he can dominate a match from set pieces, he can dominate in the air, and he can dominate on the ball with his own play-making ability. But after going back and reviewing these youtube clips that I'm going to throw in here at the bottom, the debate creeps back into my mind. There just simply hasn't ever been a player like the original Ronaldo when he was at the top of his game. He was a force of nature. You may say someone like Messi scores as much or more now than Ronaldo did, but Messi scores through the will of this present-day Barcelona team, which may be the best team of all-time. Ronaldo at his peak, not in his later days at Real Madrid, never had the team around him that Cristiano Ronaldo had at Manchester United and Real Madrid or that Messi has now at Barcelona. Ronaldo was a one-man wreaking crew.
But don't take my word for it, listen to the words of the great English legend sir Bobby Robson, Ronaldo's coach at Barcelona, "You can go anywhere in the world and you won't find a player that can score goals like that... Can anybody, anywhere, show me a better player than that?"
Now enjoy this series of youtube clips that I've hunted down:
