Cristiano Ronaldo: How overrated is his post-2015 legacy ?? Video analysis and discussion thread.

I found myself enjoying enough free time and decided to create a specific thread for this exclusive topic: Is Cristiano Ronaldo the first player of his kind, in terms of the sheer and unprecedented level of gratuitous manipulation behind his legacy as "Mr. Champions League" which itself is a title that he won in the space of just 3 seasons, the last 3 seasons of his career as of this date (March 2019), when he is already 34 years old as we speak??

I just cannot in good conscience speak about Ronaldo and Messi as if both of them logically belonged to the same category of value or talent, and this is coming from a person who doesn't necessarily see Messi as the greatest of all time. To make myself clearer: I am disappointed about the many times that Messi has been average or missing in those cherry-picked Champions League games; and I am disappointed enough that Messi isn't the automatic "goat" that he would probably be in my mind, had he at least won the Champions League 2012 with a stellar performance in the final game, for example. But at any rate, even in the face of said disappointment, I just cannot justify the abnormal difference between Ronaldo pre-2016 and Ronaldo post-2016; I mean, what exactly did Ronaldo do performance-wise in the past 3 and a half years that could even begin to justify such a meteoric rise in the goat-climb??

To make my argument as concise and as approachable as possible: Cristiano Ronaldo vs. Atletico Madrid 2019... What most fans watched, was how Ronaldo elevated Juventus. What I watched was how Ronaldo was impressive for a 34 year old, but in the larger picture, was Ronaldo even that much better than the no. 33 player who assisted Ronaldo's 1-0 goal?? Juventus' no. 33 player produced a perfect assist that David Beckham would've been proud of, nothing short of a silver-platter assist for Ronaldo's first header goal, and again Juventus' no. 33 player was also the player who won a penalty kick out of nothing in the final minutes of regular times no less... And so the player with the no. 33 shirt was directly involved in 2 goals, having created the 3-0 goal (a penalty kick) out of nothing, but the propaganda of course is that "Ronaldo elevated Juventus." Ronaldo did not created any goals out of nothing, scored 2 headers after very good crosses, and then scored a penalty kick which itself was created out of nothing by LITERALLY the same no. 33 who assisted Ronaldo's 1-0 goal. Put Luis Suarez's name where that no. 33 shirt is, and you have a potential MOTM performance to rival Ronaldo's own display.

So to summarize in slightly different terms: Ronaldo didn't and couldn't make the difference in the first leg, because obviously the service wasn't there; Ronaldo then, in the second leg, scores two headers and a penalty kick, and of course - as per the usual programming - football fans completely forgot about the no. 33 who created a penalty kick out of nothing and who also served Ronaldo's 1-0 goal on the most exquisite or shall I say silverest of silver-platters. In fact, football fans additionally forgot about how Juventus' Mandzukic scored 2 better headers in just the first half vs. Ronaldo's Real Madrid last season, which literally means that scoring 2 clutch headers in order to ignite a potential comeback was literally done by a Juventus player as recently as the previous season, and not only did Madzukic did it directly against Ronaldo and as recently as the previous season, but Mandzukic's headers were arguably more difficult to score and scored against a significantly more competitive cup-tournament-driven club i.e. Real Madrid, the first and probably the last club to win 3 consecutive Champions League cups.

Atletico Madrid 2016 - 2019
( vs. difficult or decent opponents )

vs. Real Madrid Champions League 2016/17
0-3 defeat away game / 2-1 win home game.

vs. Bayern Munich Champions League 2016/17
1-0 win home game / 0-1 defeat away game.

vs. Barcelona La Liga 2016/17
1-1 draw away game / 1-2 defeat home game.

vs. Real Madrid La Liga 2016/17
0-3 defeat home game / 1-1 draw away game.

vs. Chelsea Champions League 2017/18
1-2 defeat home game / 1-1 draw away game.

vs. Roma Champions League 2017/18
0-0 draw away game / 2-0 win home game.

vs. Barcelona La Liga 2017/18
1-1 draw home game / 0-1 defeat away game.

vs. Real Madrid La Liga 2017/18
0-0 draw home game / 1-1 draw away game.

vs. Borussia Dortmund Champions League 2018/19
0-4 defeat away game / 2-0 win home game.

vs. Juventus Champions League 2018/19
2-0 win home game / 3-0 defeat away game.

vs. Barcelona La Liga 2018/19
1-1 draw home game / * away game has not been played as of this date.

vs. Real Madrid La Liga 2018/19
0-0 draw away game / 1-3 defeat home game.

vs. Real Madrid and Barcelona La Liga & Champions League 2016 - 2019
6-11 aggregate defeat home games / 3-7 aggregate defeat away games.

Atletico Madrid 2013 - 2016
( vs. difficult or decent opponents )

vs. Barcelona Champions League 2013/14
1-1 draw away game / 1-0 win home game.

vs. Real Madrid Champions League 2013/14
1-1 draw neutral game in regular time / 1-4 defeat neutral game in extra-time

vs. Barcelona La Liga 2013/14
0-0 draw home game / 1-1 draw away game.

vs. Real Madrid La Liga 2013/14
1-0 win away game / 2-2 draw home game.

vs. Real Madrid Champions League 2014/15
0-0 draw home game / 0-1 defeat away game.

vs. Real Madrid La Liga 2014/15
2-1 win away game / 4-0 win home game.

vs. Barcelona La Liga 2014/15
1-3 defeat away game / 0-1 defeat home game.

vs. Barcelona Champions League 2015/16
1-2 defeat away game / 2-0 win home game.

vs. Bayern Munich Champions League 2015/16
1-0 win home game / 1-2 defeat away game.

vs. Real Madrid Champions League 2015/16
1-1 draw neutral game.

vs. Real Madrid La Liga 2015/16
1-1 draw home game / 1-0 win away game.

vs. Barcelona La Liga 2015/16
1-2 defeat home game / 1-2 defeat away game.

vs. Real Madrid and Barcelona La Liga & Champions League 2013 - 2016
11-6 aggregate win home games / 9-11 aggregate defeat away games.

Atletico Madrid has not won any of their last 11 league games vs. Barcelona and Real Madrid, which means that if Atletico Madrid does not win their away game vs. Barcelona in what remains of this season, then that would make it 3 full league seasons that Atletico Madrid goes without earning a victory against Barcelona or Real Madrid.

Furthermore, Ronaldo scored only one open play goal in 10 games vs. Atletico Madrid before season 2016/17; Karim Benzema - mind you with much less service, it cannot be stressed enough - scored 2 open play goals vs. Atletico Madrid before season 2016/17. (Diego Costa and Antoine Girezmann also scored 1 open play goal each, in less games than Ronaldo.) In fact, not only did Ronaldo scored less open play goals than Benzema even after adjusting for the fact that Ronaldo receives 2 to 3 more chances per game than Benzema, but also, Atletico Madrid actually won more games in La Liga directly vs. Ronaldo's Real Madrid; Atletico Madrid won 4 out of 6 games in La Liga vs. Ronaldo's Real Madrid, and Ronaldo's Real Madrid only managed to get 2 draws and ZERO wins out of 6 games.

When Ronaldo fans repeatedly demonstrate their loud and radicalized expression of ignorance in the form of - "the great defensive standard bearer that is Atletico Madrid is itself Ronaldo's favorite victim" - the cult of personality, the myth, what said fans fail to oh-so-thoroughly understand or misunderstand is that Ronaldo's goal scoring form vs. Atletico Madrid skyrocketed more or less at the same exact time that Borussia Dortmund could score a 4-0 win against the great defensive standard bearer that is (but also isn't) Atletico Madrid in their post-2016 form. At any rate, Ronaldo has scored 10 goals in 8 games against a version of Atletico Madrid that has literally not won a single one of their last 11 league games against the Barcelona and Real Madrid measure; no version of Barcelona or Real Madrid was fallible enough for Atletico to collect at least one ugly win, not even the Ronaldo-less Real Madrid of this season was imperfect enough for Atletico in their post-2016 form.

Ronaldo vs. Atletico Madrid 2013 - 2016
1 open play goal / 2 penalty kicks * one of the 2 penalty kicks was in fact totally meaningless and without value because it was the 4-1 goal in the 120th minute of extra-time * one of the 2 penalty kicks was won by Ronaldo himself / 3 goals out of 10 games in total.

Ronaldo vs. Atletico Madrid 2016 - 2019
7 open play goals / 2 penalty kicks / 1 free kick / 10 goals out of 8 games in total.

You could play Didier Drogba in there, and the results team-wise would quite probably be the same, except of course Drogba would have been rated merely as a finisher of goals, not as Messi's equal, not as Pele's equal, not as Maradona's equal, not as Cruyff's equal, but merely and primarily as a finisher of goals which is precisely what Ronaldo has been in his post-2016 career. Which brings me to my next point: when you take the criminally inflated post-2016 Atletico Madrid out of Cristiano Ronaldo's post-2016 equation, what is he left with in terms of extraordinary Champions League success??

2007 -- disappointed when it mattered.
2008 -- one of his best years overall, but probably overrated for a plethora of good reasons.
2009 -- disappointing when it mattered.
2010 -- disappointing when it mattered.
2011 -- disappointing when it mattered.
2012 -- disappointing when it mattered.
2013 -- disappointing when it mattered.
2014 -- scored only 1 meaningful goal (same as Isco) in the important games.
2015 -- disappointing when it mattered.
2016 -- wolfsburg (read: a tap in assisted by a random/lucky deflected ball, and a bad free kick).
2017 -- disastrous referee was Real Madrid's best player, also, a deflected/lucky goal in the final.
2018 -- overrated Juventus.
2019 -- overrated Atletico Madrid.

Juventus is overrated enough that even WITH Ronaldo, Atletico Madrid in its post-2016 form was almost good enough to upset Ronaldo... and even here, Ronaldo's propaganda machine is AMAZING enough that this is somehow made to look as something that for some reason further demonstrates how important and influential Ronaldo is in any team: Ronaldo can score 2 headers in one game, exactly like Mandzukic did last season... except when Ronaldo scores 2 header goals - team goals by their very definition of necessitating a good cross - when Ronaldo does the finalization of a team play it is gratuitously and methodically elevated into Mozart territory, even when there is such a thing as a no. 33 who assisted the 1-0 goal with Beckham-like precision and then also assisted the 3-0 goal out of nothing.

All the above considered: is Cristiano Ronaldo an unprecedented type of all time great, one who like Gerd Muller is extraordinary in the finalization of plays, but one who very much unlike Gerd Muller gets rated as a player of equal value to Pele, Cruyff, Maradona, Messi, etcetera? And if your answer to that question is yes, then how can that myth be reinforced and protected in the long term, without also inevitably creating a new Trumpian propaganda/media world where an accomplished well rounded finisher like Harry Kane can score 6 or 7 goals in just 5 or 6 games against demonstrably overrated and inferior clubs (of course this is assuming that Kane himself plays for one of the superior super-clubs), ultimately being perceived as having been more clutch than Ibrahimovic or Suarez or Henry ever were at the Champions League??

Such is the reductive nature of the average stupidity that awaits those of us who can still think and see with our own minds and eyes, that is, if any other great finisher not named Ronaldo is ever lucky enough to enjoy the luxury of repeatedly dismantling clubs like the post-2016 Atletico Madrid, that is, a club that was actually very competitive years ago when Ronaldo wasn't scoring at a rate of 10 goals per 8 games, but a club that clearly doesn't have the super-sized budget to compete in the long term against the super-clubs that Ronaldo ends up playing for, etc. Of course it is extremely likely that no other striker and no other player will ever be anywhere near as LUCKY as Ronaldo was between 2016 and 2019, but it still could (and perhaps should) make you think about just how fragile reality as we know it is in so many different contexts, the fact that years of unprecedented misinformation can - with the right amount of luck - transform an aging Ronaldo from a top 10 contender into a top 3 contender, more or less at the same exact time that similarly elaborate misinformation is also responsible for Donald Trump becoming the president of the United States. This is an era where the average person has lost his or her ability for common sense; yesterday it was obvious to the average observer that Johan Cruyff was simply superior to Gerd Muller, even if the statistics failed to display said perceived sense of superiority; today no discussion is even necessary purely because team-results demonstrate player-results, because player-results and team-results are understood as mirror reflections, ergo two times two equals eleven, etc. In the grand scheme of this Trumpian era Ronaldo is not only as great as Messi, but Ronaldo could easily be even greater than Messi ever was.

All of the above is why I wanted to create this thread, with the aim of discussing and demonstrating how Ronaldo's post-2016 Champions League performances compare against the much lesser analyzed (and rated) performances of players like Didier Drogba 2011/12, Diego Milito 2009/10, etc.

 

Oh you cannot be serious?? Ronaldo was not - not by any stretch of even your imagination if you were actually honest with yourself - not by any stretch the best player on the field for the first 20 minutes vs. Barcelona 2009. The fact that you still repeat such a blatant misrepresentation is just immensely ironic given how quickly you are to shoot down what you immediately perceive to be "extreme bias."

And as for Arsenal 2009, it was a competitive club but it definitely lacked the star-power to make it to a Champions League Final. Ronaldo disappointed a lot vs. Barcelona 2009, all show and no substance; honestly, Iniesta made him look like the overrated show-boating clown/winger that he was seemingly reduced to whenever he couldn't get into the rhythm of a difficult game.

I honestly had a good laugh upon reading the highlighted bits... LMAO... Albeit of course, I do enjoy what I'd say is an excess of wealth in terms of the evidence that should demonstrate that Ronaldo 2007/08 whilst great, was still inferior to several of Messi's seasons, which would render 2007/08 as an overrated/unfit argument in the Ronaldo v Messi debate. For one thing, how was Ronaldo 2007/08 better than Messi 2017/18?

 

Messi 2017/18 scored 34 goals - that's exactly 3 more goals than Ronaldo 2007/08, and Messi did so whilst playing for an incredibly dysfunctional Barcelona side, compared to the well-drilled and perfected Manchester United side that Ronaldo 2007/08 was playing for. I mean, as you noted yourself, Barcelona 2017/18 was dysfunctional to the point that, when Messi was poor, Barcelona itself was poor to the point that it gave up a 3-0 lead. Messi 2017/18 was the single reason for Barcelona winning La Liga, Messi 2017/18 was also the only reason why Barcelona even made it past Chelsea in the Round of 16, but in your opinion, Messi was "poor and influential in the most decisive periods of the season."

After having decided La Liga, and after having almost single-handedly dispatched a difficult and defensive Chelsea, Messi was bad in ONE GAME vs. Roma, and that ONE GAME vs. Roma is your entire argument against Messi. You phrased it as "the most decisive period of the season" even though it literally was ONE GAME.

And Barcelona 2007/08 finished in 3rd place in La Liga, 18 points behind Real Madrid, and 10 points behind Villarreal. Are you really going to say that Ronaldo 2007/08 was better than Messi 2017/18, in part because Ronaldo 2007/08 was lucky enough to get an inconsistent Barcelona side that finished behind Villarreal in La Liga??

Ronaldo 2007/08 had a relatively easy ride in the Champions League all the way to the final - Olympique Lyon in the Round of 16, overrated Roma in the Quarter Finals, overrated Barcelona in the Semi Finals - unequivocally one of the easiest Champions League campaigns ever... before the final itself, Ronaldo faced no difficult defensive side in the vein of Liverpool 2004-2009, no difficult defensive side in the vein of Chelsea 2004-2009, etc. No real test at all at any point prior to the final game, and then in the final itself Ronaldo was no better than Frank Lampard, not to mention that Ronaldo also failed to score his penalty kick, after which John Terry really should've won the game - Ronaldo got lucky again, the first of many times... At any rate: Overrated. Steven Gerrard was better in the difficult games in 2004/05, as was also Ronaldinho 2005/06, as was also Kaka 2006/07, as was also Iniesta 2008/09, as was also Diego Milito 2009/10, as was also Messi 2010/11, as was also Didier Dorgba 2011/12 -- as was also the case for many many other players before or after Ronaldo 2007/08.

 

What about the severe drought of La Liga titles in Ronaldo's 9 La Liga campaigns in Spain??

I guess Henry does not count league titles... which is incredibly ironic coming from Henry, because Henry literally is indistinguishable from Filippo Inzaghi or Raul Gonzalez if you only and exclusively rate the Champions League and not at all the other 38 games that a player plays when said player is not playing the only 7 games that actually matter in the Champions League.

Thierry Henry might as well go full retard and say something along the lines of... "Ronaldo 2016 - 2018 >> Ronaldo 2007 - 2013... and it's not even close because the latter won more Champions League titles, and Champions League titles are the only thing that matters when measuring the greatness of a player."

Ridiculous.

How many fingers am I holding Winston??

 

Greatly appreciate that you have inserted some much needed sense of coherence and reality to this MYTH that Ronaldo 2007/08 somehow "dispatched Barcelona" lmao. And that is on top of the fact that Barcelona 2007/08 finished in 3rd place in La Liga, 18 pts behind Real Madrid, and 10 pts behind Villarreal.

Ronaldo 2007/08 had a terrific league season, but his Champions League was arguably very overrated, which I find to be just incredibly ironic because Ronaldo fans today do not rate league football at all and would not have rated Ronaldo 2007/08 all that highly as a result of their anti-league bias.

 

Lmao... I mean, it is not my intention to make a senseless school-fight out of this thread, but this is exactly the Orwellian (Trumpian) type of thinking that is representative of this unprecedented-level-delusion bunch of pseudo-fans i.e. Ronaldo fans... Ronaldo fans are so reductive in their FLAWED results-oriented approach, that they will literally take 2 games where Messi was deemed to be MOTM in all of the 2 games, and then proceed to make the case that Ronaldo was better than Messi and that Ronaldo being better than Messi was somehow THE big reason as to why Manchester United got the result, even though Messi received better ratings, and even though it is plainly visible in YOUTUBE that Ronaldo was really quite the disappointment vs. a Barcelona team that was 3rd place in La Liga at the time.

I mean how reductive and dishonest and LAZY can Ronaldo fans be at this point?? I honestly cannot mention a precedent for this level of sporting delusion.

 

That Messi 2017/18 scored more goals than Ronaldo 2007/08 was not necessarily meant to be directly compared in literal terms against Ronaldo's inferior numbers, my point was - in its entirety actually - just a simple and lazy statement to quickly establish that Messi 2017/18 - almost a midfielder at times - scored 34 freaking goals.

I mean, yes, I am aware of the fact that Luis Suarez has scored open-play La Liga goals at more or less the same rate that Ronaldo did, of course, minus having to convert Benzema into a peasant-farmer for Ronaldo to score the same goals as Suarez. And again, yes, I am also aware of the fact that Luis Suarez has also scored La Liga Clasico open-play goals at a better rate than Ronaldo. And so, indeed, I am well aware of the fact that scoring 34 goals in the 2014 - 2018 La Liga has much less statistical significance versus scoring goals in the 2005 - 2009 Premier League.

Of course I am also aware of the fact that Luis Suarez scored 31 goals in the 2013/14 Premier League, and of course 31 goals is the same number that Ronaldo registered in 2007/08, except for the fact that Suarez did not enjoyed the benefit of playing for a dominant and devastating Manchester United side, a Manchester united side that could and did in fact continue winning the Premier League even without Ronaldo's super powers. Which brings me to my next point: Suarez's highest scoring season in La Liga is 40 goals, playing for a far more star-studded Barcelona side... It should be rather simple to adjust for the fact that Liverpool was inferior when compared to Barcelona's attacking potential, and that as such, the 31 to 40 goal difference is actually definitely smaller - and probably significantly smaller - than the 9 goal difference that you get if you just assume that Liverpool and Barcelona are equal platforms for a goal scorer like Luis Suarez.

At any rate, the inescapable truth is that Ronaldo's scoring in La Liga is significantly inflated by Benzema's unprecedented peasantry -- never had a player of Benzema's quality been used almost exclusively as a donkey/peasant whose primary or exclusive purpose was to inflate the numbers of Ronaldo to maximum capacity. Said inflation is not an honest representation of La Liga, and Ronaldo would have almost certainly scored at a significantly higher rate on average in the Premier League, had Ronaldo ever played for Real Madrid and peasant-in-chief extraordinaire Benzema but in the Premier League instead of La Liga.

Wich brings me to the next inescapable truth concerning Messi and La Liga: Messi - the playmaker - scoring 34 goals in an era of La Liga where Suarez's highest measure is 40, is extremely impressive regardless of who you compare it against. Messi scored 34 goals, scored a ton of assists, scored a ton of pre-assists, arguably single-handedly won La Liga for Barcelona, and Barcelona was a dysfunctional side. I mean, can you even begin to imagine Cristiano Ronaldo scoring 34 goals in a team where Luis Suarez also scores on average the same amount of open-play goals that Ronaldo himself scores?? I mean, is Ronaldo in his post-2015 form even capable of scoring 34 goals himself and at the same time allowing enough tactical flexibility so that Suarez can also score an additional 29 open-play goals for the same team?? Ronaldo in his post-2015 form is probably if not certainly incapable of offering all of that, because Ronaldo needs the peasantry of a Benzema or a Mandzukic doing his best impression of Benzema, etc. Which, again, was the obvious point of Messi 2017/18 scoring 34 goals.

And it seems to be habit of yours, this type of vitriolic rhetoric - "tactical stupidity, which probably makes you uneducated and stupid as a person to take seriously in any debate that is remotely related to statistics" - and, I mean, I just don't see the necessity to so quickly reduce your entire rhetoric into just nasty insults that themselves are seemingly entirely built upon wild misinterpretations of what was a very simple and self-explanatory point.

Real Madrid 2018/19 made the mistake of not replacing Ronaldo with Eden Harzard nor with some other proven world class talent. And to make matters even worse, it's literally the same group of players with virtually no competition for their starting places -- Kroos and Casemiro are textbook examples of players who feel untouchable, as a result loosing their physical form and their mental edge to complacency. But again, it's so easy to just REDUCE everything to Cristiano Ronaldo's many great impressions of a passenger in the back seat of the most expensive taxi ever (minus very few exceptions against clubs that were overrated at the time).

Moreover, Barcelona wins 3-0 the first game, with Messi being a negative for Barcelona; but then Barcelona gets eliminated in the second game because apparently Messi being a negative was lot more negative this time around, to the point that Barcelona blew a 3-0 lead... I mean, this is quite clearly results-driven drivel and it's crystal clear delusion-at-work for a lot of people who aren't gullible enough to believe that a team sport is single-handedly willed into obedience by the amazing Ronaldo, but not by Messi who lacks the big game mentality that Ronaldo thrives on lmao. This is the type of argument that Ronaldo fans like yourself are reduced to: team-results and player-results are mirror images in your mind.

Here is more of your infallible magic-logic at work again... We have Roma 2017/18, a club that eliminated clubs that had proven competitive in the immediate past, opponents such as Atletico Madrid and Barcelona, opponents that even in a deflated version of their former selves were still deemed to be competitive enough to make it as far as the Quarter Finals at least; meanwhile, Roma 2007/08 merely eliminated Real Madrid in the Round of 16, but the problem here is overtly obvious, Real Madrid was eliminated in the Round of 16 in every single year between 2004 and 2011 (including Ronaldo's first season with Real Madrid), that makes for 7 consecutive years of Real Madrid getting knocked out in the Round of 16, and because 1 out of those 7 times it was actually Roma that eliminated Real Madrid... you somehow hilariously think that that piece of 'evidence' somehow demonstrates your silly pseudo-rhetoric about how Roma 2007/08 was actually exactly if not roughly as competitive as Roma 2017/18 was... lmao.

Comparing Messi's 2017/18 goal scoring form against Ronaldo's 2007/08 goal scoring form is statistical stupidity in your opinion, but then you also happen to think that comparing Roma 2007/08 with Roma 2017/18 is for some convenient reason not statistical stupidity but rather logical and reasonable because Roma 2007/08 replicated what 6 other clubs also replicated for 7 consecutive years of Champions League. Consistency and honesty aren't your strong suit, clearly.