These Football Times
Icons: Ronaldo
(upbeat music) - Welcome to The Lob, your home of in-depth coverage and analysis by these football times, a movement of journalism you can trust. Each week, we endeavor to bring you the very best coverage of the game, exploring stories from the past and present, with analysis by expert guests from around the world. Find more about award-winning content online and in print. In the meantime, enjoy the podcast. - Hi, and welcome to The Lob podcast from these football times. And in this minist series called icons, I remember the team from TFT Towers will be chatting about players recent to all past who they consider worthy of being described as the true icons of the football world. My name is Gary Thacker, and in this episode, I'm chatting with Rob Fletcher about one of his footballing icons. So, hey dear Rob. - I'm good Gary, thanks for ready to chat about this player. - Good man. You're gonna talk about a guy who I've described in the past and I still hold this to be true. He is probably the best pure striker I've ever seen in my life. Tell me a little bit about who we're gonna be chatting about tonight, broadly. - I'm gonna butcher the Brazilian/Pochki's pronunciation, but Ronaldo, Luis Nazario de Lima. Otherwise known as Ronaldo or the real Ronaldo or the Brazilian Ronaldo, whatever you wanna call him, are nine, whatever, probably one of my favourite players of all time, if not my favourite player of all time. - What sort of era we're talking about here? Because this is a guy who came to European football as a raw teenager and then played for some of the greatest teams on the continent. So, what sort of era we're talking about, Rob? - So, we're in the '90s. So, the early '90s for Ronaldo, you know, he's a really, really young kid. I mean, he's playing F. Grazero at sort of 16, 17, coming through there and he comes to Europe at such a young age as well, 18 years old. And I think one of the reasons why, for me, Ronaldo is such a hero for me. As I was growing up at this time as a kid, watching football, eight, nine years old, and you get sort of enraptured by these players who look so different in the style of play, in how they look, in how they move. All of that, I think, plays into that, that mystique around Ronaldo a little bit. And the fact that he was so young as well, we saw him in England in 1995 at the Umbro Cup when he's still a youngster at PSV before he gets his move to Barcelona. He'd already gone to the World Cup. And I remember seeing, and this is kind of, World Cup '94, sort of my first World Cup that I see. And in the sunshine at the final, is this kid with braces and these, you know, this short hair, who, I thought to myself, I haven't seen him anywhere in any of these games. You know, who, he's not a competition winner sitting at the end of the bench. But knowing, you know when you think, why is this young kid part of this Brazil squad who just won the World Cup? And then sort of 12 months later, you go, right, okay. This is why he's here. So even as an 18 year old, he sort of burst onto that scene, but in this context of the '90s, you've got a boom in everything. Commercialism, TV footage of football. We've got a Champions League, which is expanding. So when he's at PSV, we're seeing him a lot more. There's boom in whether it's football magazines, football TV programs. We're starting to see more and more of these players. So Ronaldo is kind of, for the '90s kids, when football was booming, he's a really, really key figure in that part of, of football history, I suppose. - Yeah. It's very, it's interesting you mentioned about his youth when he first was seen. I mean, when he went to his first move was to PSV. And apparently it was Ramario, who recommended him go because Ramario used to play there. And so don't go to the big club first, go to her supporters, you know, go with the shallow end as it were, rather than being thrown in the deep end. And so I think he was only 18, 19 when he arrived at PSV. And a couple of years back, all 12 months or so back, we did a magazine on Ronaldo and I'll write a piece about him, about him. They say all the years of PSV, I know you do just some research and I recommend anybody who's sort of, you know, access to YouTube. Just look, just type in Ronaldo, PSV. And this is a kid who looks like somebody's dad's turned up to play at a 12 year old's game. I guess he's bigger, he's stronger, he's faster, he's better. I just, you know, to call this guy the phenomenon, he's just not exaggerating at all. So it burst onto that scene and I guess it was always going to go big move eventually. And that's two years here. But it's not a sexy as he had the first of many knee injuries, which would later sort of Qatar's career. But even then he was still, he almost scored a goal a game, I think it was time at PSV. So he was always going to get that big move. And then he went to, obviously, Barcelona, where he made his real name, didn't he? - He did and I think he provided a little bit of a blueprint and Romario before him of that kind of playing for us, you know, no disrespect to PSV. But a smaller, big club, as it were, you know, PSV is still a big club, big near in the one of European club. But of the big clubs, they're not a Barcelona, Real Madrid, Uve, Inter, et cetera. And kind of they were a bit of a stepping stone and teams in Holland and Belgium, they could get these young players over from South America. They could mold them, they could be successful with them. And then they could sell them on for big fees. So even though PSV had spent quite a bit of money on Ronaldo, you know, for his age and kind of where he'd come from, they actually made a huge amount of money when they sold into Barcelona in the summer of '96. And for me, seeing Ronaldo in that capper, Barcelona shirt with Bobby Robson as the manager as a world record signing, he looks a little bit startled with all the attention that he's getting because it's such a huge moment for such a young player. So he signs for them in July, 1996. So he's still not 20. You know, he's still not had his 20th birthday, he's only 19. And Bobby Robson said that he'd signed an eight-year contract with Barcelona, so obviously the plan for him really was to be there number nine for the foreseeable future and completely sort of transformed the club and build it around him. And the fact he went for a world record, P.S.V. at his young age as well, he'd scored 54 goals and 58 games for P.S.V, which is just frightening. And this is like, he's not even addled at P.S.V. You know, he's under 18 for quite a lot of the time, he's there. So really quite amazing. And the fact that he goes to Barcelona, I think for me, adds to sort of that mystique and that magic about him as a player. You know, he's going to the club that Johan Kreiford managed so successfully in the late '80s and early '90s. And there was just something about playing for Barcelona at that time. As a football club, they felt kind of so elevated in the new camp and the stadium and everything that went with that. And the fact that Romario had also played there as well, he'd done the similar route from P.S.V to Barcelona, just like Romario had. And that season at Barcelona, I mean, wow. It's very difficult, isn't it, when you're on a podcast talking about a player that you want to sort of just give superlatives to, when you also want to tell the audience, press pause, go on YouTube for three hours, and then come back. And then we'll carry on talking because just some of the ways playing, I mean, you got described as a PlayStation footballer. And obviously, you were talking about the context of the '90s. Football computer games were booming. You know, it wasn't sensible soccer anymore of these players moving in straight lines and everything like that. This was someone who looked like he was being controlled by someone 'cause of that close control. In an earlier episode, Gary, you talked about your own cry of gliding across the turf. Now, as a kid, I had Ronaldo's boots. I was a right back or a central defender. So certainly, should not have been wearing Ronaldo's boots, but there was amazing adverts and images of Ronaldo's night mercurial boots that almost look like the flying, or they've got speed flowing through them with the shape of the boot and everything like that. And the advertisements that went around him, for me, he's like Michael Jordan of football, where that kind of image is built around his style because it was so unique. His anus was Michael Jordan, but Ronaldo was this phenomenon that we genuinely hadn't seen. And number nine's didn't look like Ronaldo. You had your big guy, your big target man, who would beat all the defenders down, and you had the small little portrae. It was really quick, over five yards, eight yards, and they had such an instinct for goals. You're Gary Lindckers and what out of the world or whatever. But Ronaldo threw all that out the window and just phenomenal in terms of what he could do with the ball, especially in that season at Barcelona. - Oh, I wanna sort of touch on the other teams you played for as well, but then before we go on to Stalker's, there's something to talk about with this garbage. There's one game he played with Barcelona playing away. It's Santiago de Compostela in the north of Barcelona. And it's already north of Spain. And he picked the ball up on the halfway line. Guy's pulling his shirt, brushed him aside, went past one, played with us two. And he must have been four or five players, not by trickery, but by sheer power, pace and power way through, through, rather ball into the net. And Bobby Robson was, he goes like this, he goes hand to the air. Like I can't believe I've just seen, that was as you say, so different for a center forward of those times. But yeah, I said before, we sort of took a bit more about his sort of attributes and his legacy. This is a guy who played for Barcelona into Milan, Milan, Real Madrid. Did he miss any big club out? I mean, Middlesbrough, he didn't play Middlesbrough. - Well, Gary, you know. - But aside from that, mate. - We had a couple of Brazilians that we could have played with one thing that I didn't realize until later in life, you know, as you get older, the more you look back, isn't it, when you're a football fan? And he actually played up front with Giannino in that 1995 Umbro Cup, which was kind of a bit of a dry run for Euro 96. They were test out stadium security and whatnot. And Brian Robson was the assistant manager to Terry Vanibals for England at that time. And he was watching Giannino play with Ronaldo and thought, do you know who he'd be great with? - Jan Agafioff, because obviously, Jan Agafioff and Ronaldo, you know, interchangeable number nine, shall we say, but Ronaldo was part of such an amazing generation in Brazil in the 90s that, you know, his names that I remember, like Beto, Romario, you had Revaldo, you had Danielson, Giannino, Edmundo, just from that forward line. And yet, he was better than all of them combined. And I think when he moved to Inter and brought the record again in 97, so he had a year at Barcelona, they kept offering him contracts, basically, he was signing new contracts, they were up in his wages, they were trying to extend how long he was gonna be there for because they knew what a special player they had. And then it all went wrong. All the negotiations fall apart, you know, there's disagreements behind the scenes and he breaks the world record again. $27 million at this point in 1997, which if you think in '92, Lentini had gone for $15 million. We've doubled the world record in five years. And actually, he probably could've gone for $40 million, to be honest, and it would've been a bargain still 'cause that season when he started at Inter Milan was phenomenal. And I remember watching 'cause at a football atalia and, you know, listen to some of these school offenders in Italian football's bar and it's too defensive, you know, then Ronaldo goes there. First season, 25 goals, like it's nothing. And he gets Serie A football at the end, you think, "Wow, he's just going to carry on scoring. "It's going to be so easy." And almost, he was going to be sort of, "You hoped he was going to be Van Basten "without the injuries." But then injuries come and you sort of mentioned it before a little bit, Gary, with the knee injury. They got a PSV that meant he didn't get two full seasons really with PSV, kind of one and a half. And it was a real tragedy, like for me, it's a genuine, genuine tragedy in football that what happened to Ronaldo and his injuries because it totally changed the way he played football. He's still a phenomenal player. When you talk about Real Madrid, wow, all-traffered, that half-trick when he's clapped off the pitch is amazing. And his goal-scoring record is still fantastic. Imagine Real Madrid when he can't run, he's slightly overweight, you know, he hasn't got that burst of pace and he changes. For me, it's interesting. I think it all starts probably around the '98 World Cup Final when no one still really knows the story of that night. I mean, I remember that vividly as a kid watching it with my dad because he was like the same, my favourite player. And I had the Brazil shirt with the Ronaldo nine on the back and everything like that. And it was so confusing that he wasn't playing, then he was playing, then, you know, you're hearing these people talking about, you know, he's had convulsions or whatever in the dressing room. Has he had a heart attack? You know, there's something happening to him. And then from there, things start to change quite a bit for him in terms of injuries. And, you know, I feel like it kind of makes him a little bit more iconic because you've always got that. Imagine how he thought, like, look at Messi and Ronaldo. They've done 20 years of incredible, incredible football. And yet, there's still probably a generation of football fans who say, but they are nowhere near as good as Ronaldo was from that '96 to '99 period. But only three years you can. You can't, for me, you can't be the best in the world or the best ever. It was much as I'm wanting to be with such a short, kind of real, true peak. And I think that's such a shame, isn't it? - I think that's a really good point. I mean, to look back and say he was the best in the world, but as I said earlier, no, to me, for me, at his peak, when we were talking, we're talking Barcelona season, a little bit of PSV, Barcelona truss earlier, didn't say. He was the best striker. I mean, you wouldn't say Messi was a striker, perhaps Ronaldo would say, he wouldn't say Paris was a striker, he wouldn't say, no, I don't know it was a striker. But as a pure striker, it's certainly the best striker I've ever seen in my life. And I'm going back more years like here to think about it. But I guess, you know, and you mentioned, you know, the sort of the problems he had, and that almost makes him more human. That's, you know, that vulnerability, that weakness that he had. And it was still, you know, even after there was a crypt in the injuries, you mentioned, you know, rather the Hatrick et Al Trafford, you know, he was still an exceptional footballer, but, you know, so he had, he had a number of setbacks to go through in his career, one of which was the recurring knee injury. And then you mentioned about the World Cup thing. And he played in that fall eventually, but well, I say played. He turned up and he was on the pitch, but that was probably a barrier, wasn't he? - Yeah. And that, you know, as a 12 year old football fan, I've been at the time, that was, that was quite tough to watch, actually. You know, as a young fan, when you kind of want to watch your heroes and you want to enjoy the football that you love, it was such a horrible moment. And how sad that was probably for him. As such a youngster, I mean, still, sort of 20, 21 years old at that point. And the whole world at your feet, you know, you think you're going to have another 10, 15 years, but it sort of puts into perspective a little bit, doesn't it, when you talk about how football is such a short career for these players, you know, and so much of their, their worth, their importance and their sort of legacy is built around their health. And for someone like Ronaldo, from the '98 final, he plays what? Probably about 30 games, maybe 40 games over the next three seasons, which again, for someone like him. What I do find, I mean, I'm very much, I like, you know, born from championship manager. So I look at appearances goals, assists, that's the bread and butter. And his goal record, even when he wasn't fit, he's still scoring, he'll be a goal again. Even though he's only playing 10 games, he's scoring eight goals, or he's playing four games, scoring four goals, even with all the problems that he had. And you sort of feel for, for instance, Milan and their fans as well, you know, buying this player from Barcelona, seeing him be absolutely incredible for them. He's brilliant right up until the final in the World Cup, which I still think, still one of my favourite World Cups with a strong Dutch team, a strong Argentinian team. Even the English team was strong, French, really competitive tournament. And yet he just has no part to play in that final, which again, you know, it must be so difficult for him. But he gets 2002, and that's the thing. He gets it back, and he kind of comes back and he gets himself fit towards the back end of the season. And he has the silliest haircut ever known in one football, and even so, just for him to have that moment and win that World Cup for me, it's just brilliant, so memorable for him. Yeah, I guess, you know, when we look back at players' careers, but, you know, iconic players and, you know, outstanding stars over the game, and how they perceived, and, you know, you look back at... You'd mentioned, you know, Missy and Ronaldo, never really had that injury crisis time in their careers, and, you know, fair play, that's a good fortune. But I guess with Ronaldo, it's almost a case of, you know, what you could have been. You know, if he hadn't have had those injuries, I mean, it was being successful so early in his career, that's sort of, you know, the classical overuse injuries when you get a kid growing up and playing so many games. And, I mean, what could he have been? What could he have been? I mean, we're talking about it, and I would say, I have no doubt in one of those, certainly a great player. I just think he's a great striker. What could he have been with those injuries? For me, he would be the best player of all time. I genuinely believe that he would have been the best player of all time, because if you think he would have been, you know, it's time at Real Madrid. He stands for Real Madrid when he's only 25. - Correctly. - Imagine if he'd have gone there still having had four good seasons at Inter Milan, maybe. They almost certainly would have won Serie A titles. They would have been competing for the Champions League. Remember, the Champions League at the back end of the 90s, early North Asia had sort of a lengthier, got to a final by a Munich who, you know, good side, solid sides, but not, I would not that I would say they were spectacular. Real Madrid obviously won with that final at hand and part with the famous Zidangal, but if he'd, I think he probably would have ended up at Real Madrid anyway, because Real Madrid, everybody ends up at Real Madrid, don't know if they're one of the best players in the world. So I think you're probably looking at, you only ever won two league titles in his career. And one of those, he only actually played three stats. The other one, you know, it's first season that Madrid he played a lot more, but he didn't win a Champions League. He obviously won the UEFA Cup with Inter Milan. - Maybe Brazil, yeah. - Couple his Cup with their Barcelona. Maybe Brazil would have won even more with him there. I mean, could you imagine like a 30-year-old Ronaldo, if he'd still been fitting at his peak, you probably could be looking at four, 500 karaegos, 600 karaegos, who knows? I think the sky, genuinely, I think the sky would have been the limit for a play like Ronaldo. - You have to look at, I mean, everyone was doing the mag on Ronaldo. Look back at his season of Barcelona, you think, you left there when he was 20, 20, 19, 20, he got at the top at his peak, seven or eight years ahead of him, at his peak. That's been sort of fairly conservative. If it had had that ability to keep playing without those injuries, he would destroy it all goal-scoring records. Wherever he went, I mean, whatever club he played and in international folk, he would destroy it all goal-scoring records. Because, I mean, logically, it wasn't even at his peak, then he's got another three or four years to sort of fill out, as it were, and mature as a player, which he was denied him. But, you know, the things, it would have destroyed the goal-scoring records. And there would be no contest. You can put Pelly, put this stuff now, you can put Maradano Messi, who you want. If he had had a chance to play four fitness for those years, my word, my word. - Yeah, and I think what people forget is he basically misses one whole season at the turn of the millennium. Completely. You know, after that Barcelona season, he starts 32 games in his first season into a 25 goal, so still nearly a goal again. The following season, he only starts 17, then five, then he misses the season completely, and then nine. So that age 21 to 24 is just ripped away from him. And that's the sort of time when you're working it out, you know, any flaws. I mean, you had very few, but any flaws, any tweaks to your game, you know, any little tricks that you start to develop or the position that you start to work with. Remember, in tomorrow, at that time, we're constantly signing players. They would have found the right part before him. And he would have just scored so many. And I think, again, it was brilliant to see him back at Real Madrid almost again at a goal again. But, what could have been, I suppose it doesn't even better thinking about, because, I mean, he probably thinks about it all the time, you know, what could have been if I hadn't had those injuries. But on the flip side, you've got to think he still won the World Cup for Brazil, even after all the injuries. And he had a really great goal scoring record. It was part of that Galactico squad, who were fun to watch, if maybe not as successful, as they probably should have been, especially with him there. So I do think it's not a wasted opportunity, because he took every opportunity that he had, but it's just, you know, really difficult. And like I said, tragic circumstances from a football point of view. Looking back, you know, he's probably had a career as successful as 0.00001% of all professional footballs there in the history of mankind. But, you know, he still put a little bit, a little bit shaded. I mean, it might not be a way, it's still involved in football and Spain, a year-on, so part-homes Real by a delayed pin up in the north of Spain. And so he's still involved in football. And that's great to have that sort of presence there still. So, final question, Rob. All of this question I spoke to a few of the guys over the series. If he was planned today, he would have fit into the modern game. However he perishing well wants to, I suppose, would be the answer wouldn't he? - I think for someone like, for someone like Ronaldo, I actually think the modern game is even more suited to his capabilities than the 90s when he was around. We've taught a lot, you know, in the series about all players from different generations and the type of boots they might have had, the ball, the pitch, the stadium, the shirt, the training, the recovery facilities, everything like that. But if you think he was so versatile in what he could do, if you would have said to me, right, Ronaldo's gonna play for a man's city in a really high-pressing style, it's gonna press the defenders and the goalkeeper, I would be terrified of that if I was the opposition. 'Cause he was so quick, he was so sharp, and he was so clever with his movement. If you also said to me, he was gonna play for a Jose Mourinho side, where Mourinho loved to sit a little bit deeper, soak up the pressure, and then spring on a counterattack, he would be the first person forward, leading the line with speed, with pace. I mean, for me, we talk about Mbappe, we talk about Erling Harland, but actually, Ronaldo was better than both of them, combined, combined. Because what the flaws in those two players are, Ronaldo actually could cover all of that, so he had the strengths of both of them. If we're sort of classing those two as, you know, the best forwards in the comic shop, we say, are the most modern forwards, if you like, in the current game. If you actually think that sort of uniqueness, and the flair and creativity that you had, I was watching one of the best things about doing these podcasts is, you've now got an excuse to go on YouTube and watch these highlights. And there's actually, there's a compilation, I think it's called 59 goals, and it's all of his Intermal Angles, and I've seen lots of his Barcelona goals, but not as many of his Intermal Angles, probably, although I saw a lot at the time, and he just toys with defenders. There could be two, three, four defenders around him. It didn't matter, it's like he had the skill of Messi, the power of a Ronaldo or Harland, and the pace of Mbappe, all sort of rolled into one. And you know what, one of the best things about was, he looked like he was having a brilliant time. Didn't he? He looked like, on that pitch, that whole jogger Benito kind of atmosphere that they created around that 98 squad with the advert in the airport. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - dribble in the ball or a bit of cars. It looked like football is fun. Yeah, it is about winning. We all wanna win. But actually, it's about fun. It's about entertainment, it's about your fans, and also it's about for the players, actually loving the game. And for me, when I look at Ronaldo, I think, you love the game, you absolutely love the game. And it's funny when you see these legends games, isn't it? You know, you're seeing like, they go on two and up. And he's a big guy now. He's a big guy. But you see him on the football pitch, and he's still smiling, and he's still doing tricks, and he's still shooting from everywhere. And for me, in the modern game, he would be sort of like the ultimate kind of icon for people to look up to. 'Cause he loved the game. He loved playing football. He always played with that joy and that freedom that we could probably argue is missing a little bit from some of the modern superstars. You know, are they actually having fun? Or is the pressure of being a big player in a big team so much? But for me, one of the reasons why he's such an icon, it's just the joy he brought to a football pitch. - Right, why'd you finish it, Rob? Right, why'd you finish it? So that was Ronaldo the icon. Yeah, great, great shot. So I'm actually thanks to Rob for sharing his thoughts on the real Ronaldo, the real Ronaldo. And thanks for listening. Catch this guy on Nick's episode of the Lob podcast from these football times. And we'll be talking about another football market. - Many thanks for joining us today on the Lob at these football times production. For more of our content, check out our award-winning print magazine featuring some of the game's foremost writers, artists and photographers, exploring areas of the game rarely covered in high-end print. For now, we look forward to you joining us again soon.