To many, Ronaldo is one of the greatest footballers of all time.
No, not Cristiano Ronaldo, but the original Brazilian Ronaldo. O Fenomeno.
Neither before nor since has another player managed to replicate what Ronaldo was; an anomaly.
But, for some reason, he doesn’t really feature within the Greatest of All Time conversation,
which is dominated by Maradona, Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Pele.
Why is that? Why is it so hard to understand how good he really was?
An obvious point to start with.
Ronaldo’s career didn’t run parallel to any of the other players in that conversation.
Pele and Maradona dominated earlier eras. Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo arrived later,
after Ronaldo’s prime had long gone.
Side-by-side comparisons are not possible and his abilities cannot be properly contextualised.
Another problem is more abstract and arises from how unusual Ronaldo was.
Much of his appeal lay in his uniqueness and how, for many, what he did on the pitch was new. When
his reputation began to grow in Europe, first with PSV and then latter at Barcelona and beyond,
his playing style comprised elements than many had never seen before in a single footballer. Ronaldo
was physically imposing – very broad shouldered – but he was also extremely quick, very agile
and highly skilful in a way that few others were and which seemed to defy his body type.
He was a prolific goalscorer, yes, but also a spectacle. A unicorn,
long before such terminology existed. A classic example is Barcelona manager Bobby
Robson’s famous, disbelieving reaction to Ronaldo’s Compostela’s wondergoal in
1995. Clearly, that was the response of someone who had just seen something new,
and had watched the parameters of what he thought possible being redrawn.
But how can that be quantified and explained to a modern audience? Ronaldo can never be put
back in that particular moment in time, before the game had evolved with the aid
of greater commercialisation, more advanced training techniques and superior preparation.
Instead, his impact is more anecdotal. His career ended well before the analytics boom, so his
contribution can’t even be described with anything more detailed than the most basic statics.
It leaves him dependent upon witness statements from those who watched him live,
even if that does provide highly compelling testimony.
Ronaldinho described him as his hero growing up.
So did Lionel Messi, saying that “He was the best striker I’ve ever seen. He was
so fast he could score from nothing, and could shoot the ball better than anyone.”
Thierry Henry said that “Ronaldo did things nobody had seen before”
Clarence Seedorf called him “the best player I have seen in my career”
Perhaps the most pertinent point was made by Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who remarked that:
“There was nobody like him. No one has influenced both
football and the players who emerged as Ronaldo…”
Influence is important to Ronaldo’s legacy. He inspired a whole generation of players,
becoming one of the first elite goalscorers to play from deep
and among just a few who could contribute to a very high standard outside the box.
In his own era, his goal tallies were broadly comparable to players like Alan Shearer,
Patrick Kluivert, and Gabriel Batistuta, and predecessors such as Hristo Stoichkov
and Romario and yet, very obviously, he had greater dimensions as a player.
Ronaldo also spawned imitators. Hundreds of future players would mimic his traits. His success also
redrew the boundaries of his own position, destroying the expectation that a forward
belonged solely in the box or that they shouldn’t try to beat defenders 40 or 50 yards from goal.
He was not the first player to do those things, but – arguably – he was the first
to exhibit those abilities all at the same time and so consistently. Crucially,
he did so at a time when football from different leagues was beginning to be
broadcast across the world far more regularly, allowing his influence to stretch further.
Timing was very important for Ronaldo. But then so – strangely - was his misfortune.
Ronaldo moved to PSV when he was 18. In the four seasons after his arrival,
encompassing spells at Barcelona and Inter Milan, he was prolific everywhere he went. Regardless of
the league and irrespective of its defensive standards, he scored goals in great number.
But in 1999, he suffered the first of two serious knee injuries in consecutive seasons,
costing him almost two whole years of his career during his mid-twenties prime.
Like any great player who suffers injury young, there is a sense that Ronaldo would
have achieved an impossibly high standard during that period. And not unreasonably.
He had been FIFA World Player of the Year in 1996 and 1997, had won the Ballon d’Or in 1998,
and won the Best Player award at the 1998 World Cup. When that kind of ascension is interrupted
by injury, fans’ imaginations tend to fill in the gaps and garnish the player’s legend.
Ronaldo returned to win the 2002 World Cup with Brazil and top score in the tournament.
Once again, he claimed the Ballon d’Or and that he managed that feat in spite
of injuries which might have ended his career is also very seductive,
and – in some eyes – worth more than whatever he may have won in the period when he was absent.
But it is the same problem: particularly after an era during which Messi and the other Ronaldo
demonstrated their success so literally, with goal records, trophies by the dozen
and an unprecedented hold over the game’s top individual prizes, what metrics can be used to
make Ronaldo’s case? His Ballons d’Or worth aren’t asterisked or inscribed differently
in recognition of what he overcame. They can’t be. And yet, because they’re not, their literal
tonnage doesn’t really tell the whole story. But most of all, given the limitations and
the nature of what happens in sport when time passes, how good Ronaldo really was
is so elusive because it depends upon subjective interpretations of what a great player really is.
What is more important: trophies or impact? Longevity or spectacle?
Impact versus performance? The importance of a career versus what it meant it time?
These will always be questions without proper answers.