http://thelab.bleacherreport.com/remembering-ronaldo-at-barcelona/
"I love [Lionel] Messi, I played many times with Cristiano [Ronaldo] and I adore him, Neymar is outstanding, Ronaldinho was exceptional—but if you put all of them together, you might get what Ronaldo was that season."
"Some players were technical, some were quick, some were strong, some were smart...Ronaldo was all of those. He was a beast; it was unfair to everyone else."
Quinton Fortune on Ronaldo
@Zacheryah @CrimsonianKing @all the other dudes loving Ronaldo
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If this guy never got injured, still one of the biggest what ifs in sport
I agree. We see today that Messi is very clinical when he gets space, in an era which restrict allready very average to weak defenders. Sometimes you see him abuse the space between defenders for a mazing run, and he's insane at it.
But thats modern defenders, and modern strict fouling.
Ronaldo ? He made the space. There are so many compilations of him seemingly beeing closed down. He's my greatest player in history. Today he would fly past opponents. Back then, they could easily foul you. So he had to use tricks and pure technique to send them on the wrong foot.
I remember the cup final between inter and lazio. Closed down by Nesta, Mihajlovic and some other cm. fancy feetwork, elastico and got past. Consistantly raped Nesta the entire game. No fucking chance, shitty inter won 3-0 against a team that was levels ahead of todays juventus.
I remember that time he took ayala on the side. You need to watch it in slow motion to see, cause it looks like he's making some unnatural move, its my favorite dribbel of all time.
This guy was just 20-22 when he was absolutely insane. Messi was amazing at early age, but significantly kept developping untill he was 24-25 at his best season.
Ronaldo got injured and didnt had any incentive to further develop. If you played the best defences in history, and rape them without training, how does one motivate ?
Imagine, if Maradona and Ronaldo played at the same era, and Il fenomeno never got injured.
I'm sorry, i saw this ronaldo. I never rated messi 'cornering' past poor defenders. I saw ronaldo humiliate legends. Saw Ronaldinho do sick things against lesser legends. I just liked that alot more.
Also this is why i like Pjaca. Fucking stepovers, where have you been
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I love that part
"he quickly realised he wasent going to be gifted oceans of space like in la liga"
Adapts and scores 34 goals in 47 games aged 21 in his debute season in that league when it was amazing as balls if you win 3 games in a row
Fucking hell, what a player