Madrid's Highest Goal Scorer - The Cristiano Ronaldo Thread

Uhhh the Madrid crowd use to chant fat Ronaldo at him in games and he was severely out of shape at Real Madrid, I love the player, but he did not give a ******** when he was playing for us.




Here is Ronaldo chasing a cupcake

 

Haha how many times has it turned into a CR7 against R9 battle in this thread?

 

Let's lighten this a little

 

I don't know, fat Ronaldo just turned up and started chasing a cupcake, random I know!

 

Trolls in this thread deserve A- for their efforts. Immaculate, impeccable trolling. They have nailed the timing and art style of shitting all over the thread. They have divided themselves in multiple groups so it is borderline impossible to fight with them and win. One group has Hendrix and his cave trolls; a bunch who has to hyperventilate on a few obsessions weekly. If they don't troll, they won't exist, so they are beyond help.

Another group is ALT account holders from Barca Swamps; they want to inflict maximum damage and care nothing for who or how they offend; they are masters of blending in with the crowd. They either wait for Cave trolls to come in and say something retarded, and then release their toxin, or start by stating an outrageous claim and then invoking 4th amendment when other object.

Last group are trolls, some Madrid supporters, who genuinely don't like Ronaldo, so no matter what Ronaldo does, whatever record he breaks and how many trophies he wins, he is still "not there", lower than any C rated player that has ever kicked the ball in our jersey and unworthy of the praise he gets. I call them Bridge trolls. These are the "he is old and needs to leave" crowd. They hibernate and wake up once in blue moon to troll but most often they are silenced by Ronaldo himself in the field after performing a hat-trick or another series of vital goals.

That leaves the rest of us, who have either long given up on the thread or are too busy fighting this unwinnable battles with Swamp, cave and bridge trolls.

 

Have you taken your pills today?

 

He doesn't have to. With less talent he is greater than him.

That says more than you can ever attempt to spin or defend.

 

I'll use an analogy and liken the talent of both players to money and investments. (Not transfer value)

Let's say R9 at 20 years old already had like £20million in terms of talent (he was pretty much the finished product already) with CR7 only possessing £1million at the same age. Yet, R9 only managed to turn his £20million to £30-40million while CR7 maximised and elevated himself to £70million making his status and legend superior to the Brazilian despite having lesser innate ability. So CR7 invested better in his talent (along with much more luck) and reaped greater rewards in the long run: achieving a higher status.

 

We did not get the best years of Ronaldo because he was never the same after that horrible knee injury. It was not his fault that Flo went for him at that point. Despite him no longer being the same athlete that he was at Barca or Inter, he still won a Balon D'or with us.
Cristiano's athleticism and fitness is incomparable.
Contrary to some here, I value Ronaldo's entire career (NT and clubs) and not just the years he played for us.
I love football first, RM second and this is how I am able to appreciate the greatness of other players that are not or who are less associated with Real Madrid.

 

Both Ronaldos played for my team! Do I really get upset over this debate?

As mentioned earlier, I did not care for La Liga until Ronaldo 9 joined Barcelona. He was at the birth of the next great one. To me, he was going to be the next Maradona or Pele. R9 at Barcelona was going to be the icon of my generation. After he left Barcelona, Ronaldo's fever died down. I did not need to watch him every game. Then, he was injured. It was his second injury that really got me into him again. I knew that he won't be back again.

Look at Simeone's reaction. He charged from the midfield and checked on Ronaldo. He realized what just happened, The footage did not showed Simeone's facial expression. He could be faking his emotions, but he summed up how I felt about it. The best player of our generation was finished. He was 24, I think.



I did not want to repeat the story of how I became a Real Madrid fan. When Ronaldo joined Real Madrid, I started to watch every single of his games again. I appreciated him much more after his second injury. The best player of our generation was not finished, but he was 27 or 28..... he won't last forever.

 

This is a good analogy, but you might want to change it a bit. Maybe to something like this -

Ronaldo initially turned his 10 million investment into 70 million in a very short amount of time (considering he was acknowledged as the undisputed best player in the world by 1997 at 21, like CRonaldo was by 2008 but at 24), before natural disasters (his injury troubles) cost him his entire business along with 2 years of his life. Afterwards he started with a 5 million investment (lowered due to his body no longer being able to move as well as before, though the talent was still there), which he ended up converting into 30-40 million (winning the World cup, La liga and being crowned Balon d'Or and WPOTY winner), before retirement. While in case of CRonaldo, maintaining the valuation of his business at around 70 million for all this time since 2008, would be considered to be his key differentiator.

From a footballing perspective though, you put that Ronaldo (96-98) in the 2011-12 RM team or this season's RM team, and there is a good chance that Messi's exploits from both those those seasons become footballing footnotes, as Ronaldo's performances would absolutely annihilate them, when placed side-by-side. Fact is, any player of his dribbling ability would not be playing football during the era in which he played, unless the player was very brave and willing to put his body through some serious punishment, week-in and week-out. So the current refereeing protection would basically make him sprout wings by comparison, and allow him to play games with much more of an 'all in' attitude.

 

No one has motivated me more to watch a football than Ronaldo.

 

Nostalgia plays a massive part in all of this too of course.

 

I'm more worried where the goals will come from on the biggest stage, when the lights are brightest. Those were 12 long and brutal years after 2002 lol

 

And he could still destroy defenders anytime he liked, on form he was unstoppable.

 

In his first two seasons at Real Madrid, sure I'll give you that, still was an injury waiting to happen and was the main reason we missed out on a great 03/04 season because he simply didn't look after his body. Would rather chase cupcakes and transgender hookers than work on his conditioning and fitness.

 

That fat Ronaldo had two devastating knee injuries at 23-24 years of age, and despite he came back and single-handledly wrecked WC 2002, and offered three strong seasons at RM despite being basically invalid and overweight. For retrospect, Ronaldo is his "second last" season managed to outscore Benzema.

As for non-sensical CR7 vs Ronaldo. CR7 easily in terms of longevity, profesionalism and impact on RM. In terms of highest peak / performance, without any doubt Ronaldo. In my life time, i have not seen anybody do what he was regulary doing in 3 different leagues, until his injuries. And even after, he was spectacular player for a few seasons.

 

OK let me address this rubbish. Benzema has been a far better player for Real Madrid than Ronaldo ever was, sadly.

Secondly Benzema has scored 19 goals this season so far, Ronaldo in his second last season only scored 15 goals, so not sure where you are getting your information.

Then why not look at the entire picture while we are here? Benzema has scored way more goals and has won way more titles with and for us than Ronaldo ever did. 180 goals in 364 games with 8 major trophies, over 8 seasons, while not being the primary scorer or on ball player vs R9's tally of 104 goals in 177 games, over 5 seasons, with 2 major trophies (only one of which he was responsible) being both the primary target and primary scorer. I'll take Benzema every day.

Not to mention the lack of care given while Ronaldo was at Real Madrid, ask those that watched Madrid back then how many times Ronaldo missed games due to weight issues and what happened under Capello and losing his starting spot to RVN.

For me Ronaldo (R9) will always be the eternal promise of Real Madrid. He came in scored a brace on debut, helped us win La Liga that year, destroyed Man Utd in his first season with that incredible hattrick, scored in the first leg against Juventus and then what would epitomise Ronaldo's entire career at Real Madrid, he was injured for the second leg (he came on as a substitute in the second half despite being unable to really do anything) and we were knocked out. After this moment it was all downhill. The next season he would miss the most important part of the season due to injury again, we would miss out on all major trophies and from there he went downhill. Yes we did win the La Liga in 06/07 but credit should not be given to Ronaldo (1 goal in 7 games) he did far less than Mariano did for us this season, that win was proper RVN magic.

So no I will not give Ronaldo any credit, I don't support Brasil, I support Real Madrid and for Real Madrid he was a disaster, a disappointment, an eternal promise of what would never be. If we had any other striker who was half as talented but could stay on the field we would of got a lot more out of those years than we did.

People will probably refute that injuries were not his fault, they were, he never looked after his conditioning, or his weight or his body in order to stay on the field.

 

R9 is the reason I got hooked to football. But yeah, can't deny he only had one and half good seasons at RM. He got out of shape and was disappointing in big CL games after that. Should have finished that chance at Juve in 2005 and missed an early sitter at Arsenal. Like in the first 2 minutes. Not to mention his media drama before Arsenal first leg about wanting to leave which was a distraction. And he was booed by Brazilians during 2006 WC. Life had come a full circle from a WC hero to fat, unwanted fallen star in four years.

 

Here come the doctors and history revisionists. Sigh.

Its laughable to make a causal claim about the source of Ronaldo's injuries without any insight into his medical record or any knowledge of sports medicine whatsoever, apart from the most lay and simplistic diagnosis - he was fat, so he got injured. Yeah, heres your medical degree then

Ronaldo was pretty damn great for Madrid until that moment in the derby in 2005 at the Calderon when he broke his ankle. After that, he sort of lost his edge, similar to Benzema this year, although the diminished post-ankle break Ronaldo was still better than diminished Benzema of this season.

Either way Ronaldo vs Benzema for Madrid is a good discussion. People often deride Benzema saying he hasn't had enough defining moments for Madrid, even though he has the games, goals and titles to show. On the other hand, Ronaldo had more memorable moments (ManU hattrick, Bilbao brace on last day of 02/03 and plenty of others), but no titles to show. Both legends, but I would pick Benzema. Titles trump everything.