That about 6 assists for Barcelona is only at La Liga so including friendlies and other competitions he has probably more. Ronaldo did not play 47 games in La Liga.
Ronaldo in his debut inter Milan season is the greatest foreign player in serie a history Better than van basten,platini,baggio and dare I say even Diego Maradona Everyone thinks 96/97 is his best season because he could singlehandedly take on La Liga defences and score outrageous solo goals but the ronaldo of Inter till his injury in 99 was a much more cerebral player.a more composed dribbler and more importantly a better team player Ronaldo may of only recorded 6 assists but he was involved in a hell of a lot more His uefa cup performance in 97/98 is possibly the best ever individual performance in its history (even better than baggio 92/93) He was a force of nature in that competition if opta ratings were available im sure his dribbles per game stats would be of the charts (similar if not better than Messis in 10/11) This is arguably one of his most devastating dribbling performances for intermilan.i have never seen maradona look as dangerous in any match for Napoli with the exception of his performance vs juve in 85/86. Imo ronaldo de Lima never brought his true phenomenon form vs the very best club sides but his performances vs Milan and juventus in 97/98 were strong and he was efficient. (He scored twice vs Milan with 1 good pre assist and made a great dribbling assist vs juve) The ronaldo of 97/98 looked like top 10 all time material and he was only 21 years old playing in the best league in the world In the words of inter legend and then sporting director Sandro Mazzola “...What I saw ronaldo do in his first season for inter Milan well I’ve never seen anyone do that before.he did such incredible things with the ball at such speed,astronomica astronomica...to watch ronaldo was pure football,the way he stopped the ball,the way he changed direction,what he invented ..” And about near career ending injury “The real ronaldo never came back obviously he was still a great player still inventive but he wasn’t the same” What a travesty for football fans the World over that we arguably never got to see the best of ronaldo de Lima.i maintain as I always have ronaldo de Lima in his debut inter season is the highest peak in European club football history (on par with Messi)not because of stats (even though 34 goals by a playmaking forward is solid enough)but technically he was complete ,just so perfect. Arguably the best YouTube football video 25mins of pure magic
@PuckVanHeel I have a question regarding Guerin D’or,dbs Calcio and Oscar Del Calcio unanimously ranking Francisco totti ahead of el fenomeno In 1997/98 http://www.rsssf.com/miscellaneous/italpoy.html Would you happen to know the reason behind this? I know he won the foreign best player award but it seems he was eligible for both which is seems a bit suspicious to me
I think you misread the Oscar Del Calcio entry for 97/98 mate - it does say Ronaldo for that year, but Totti a couple of years later. Here is the Italian Wiki page with details, showing Totti was a nomination for Best Young Player, but not for Best Italian Player overall: https://translate.google.com/transl...rg/wiki/Oscar_del_calcio_AIC_1998&prev=search He was highest rated on average by both DBS Calcio's sources (combined) and the sources used to calculate things in order to award the Guerin d'Oro too. IIRC some if those sources are the same, but there are differences at least in some years (DBS Calcio have Savicevic top for 94/95 for example). Sometimes the considered overview can be different to simply tallying up average ratings from newspapers, but those newspaper ratings did favour Totti over the entire season to be fair. As far as I know, even though Kaka won the Oscar Del Calcio for 2006/07 and it's often suggested his Serie A season wasn't especially great, or his best one, the award is for Serie A, or at least domestic Italian games, so Ronaldo's UEFA Cup games wouldn't influence things (if I'm right about that). I'm not sure if players vote themselves, but I guess so and it could be like the PFA award in England, so could be decided a bit before the end of the season. Not many won that and the Guerin d'Oro in the same season though I see - Pirlo and Tevez lately and Nedved shared one award with Totti and won the other once. Of course if the Oscar del Calcio awards were around in the 80s Platini and Maradona for example might have also won both (seems feasible for 83/84 and 84/85 anyway).
Not sure, I'd noticed before - there is an award for Best Serie A (or Italian?) Player of the Century in 2000, going to Franco Baresi: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_del_calcio_AIC_2000
Actually it looks to me like the awards are annual (calendar year, not season) - look at the dates of the 'Best Goals': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gran_Galà_del_Calcio So that'd mean Ronaldo still won for 1998 calendar year, and interestingly Zidane for 2001 after he left mid-way. Maybe the best player awards are indeed for the previous season, or they were originally and then it was changed to calendar year (normally things happen the other way round in football awards though if anything). I'd never properly tried to look into it before. When Kaka won for 2007, the awards were handed out in January 2008 at least: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_del_calcio_AIC_2007
Sorry, I see now you tagged me but somehow I didn't receive an alert. I think I have part of the answer. Will reply tomorrow.
Nevertheless there still is the issue of not just Francisco totti being ranked ahead of R9 in 97/98 by Dbs Calcio but also bierhoff!!! I think Dbs Calcio is somewhat reliable when it comes to ranking Serie A players As for other leagues I can’t claim to be as convinced.the Oliver bierhoff ranking definitely befuddles me though The source also confirms what I’ve felt about maradona but haven’t been able to substantiate. His best was in the last years for boca,first year in Barcelona and first year in Napoli(in 1981 he was ranked 6.75 which was high within the context of that time according to a source posted by Vegan10) After World Cup 86 maradona seemed to suffer from “stress postmondiale” Perhaps 1989 is the only year where he regained his best form in the league even if he was less than convincing in the uefa Cup when compared to careca or carnevale who came up big against the biggest opponents they faced(Bayern Munich,Stuttgart) which maradona did not I’m also reading a few bits on how Luciano Moggi may of probably influenced refs in favour of Napoli which can explain the many favourable decisions they recieved along the way. Moggi did the same for Torino by bribing refs with prostitues and again for juventus on an even grander scale The more you look into it,it becomes harder to appreciate anything about Serie A seeing how tarnished it was by corruption which was prevalent throughout the league(from top to bottom)
As @PDG1978 has already shown, Ronaldo was put higher in the 'Oscar del Calcio' (best foreign player and best player overall). This is the Guerin d'Oro of 1997-98 (click link), in DBScalcio Totti, Baggio, Nedved and Bierhoff were put ahead, ADP just behind. As for 'reasons', I think we have to consider the following (not saying I have the final or complete answer): 1) As always, ratings are not perfect. It is nice to have them and have an extra reference (we can see once again Baggio was very popular when he played for minor teams - although at Brescia he had actually serious talent around him - but less so when playing for a traditional top team - we can see this contrast), but there are various inevitable flaws of sincere and less sincere types. As you signal yourself, Moggi (and Allodi before him) structurally interfered in the assignments of higher and lower ratings to players (even worse: Careca and Maradona physically threatening journalists after getting lower grades - but that are luckily the exceptions and not the norm). Totti in 1997-98 scored 13 goals (1 penalty) and had 8 assists (4 from open play I think?) which doesn't instantly scream 'world class' although he was - even then - the sort of player to make his team tick and click (more so than ADP, more than Baggio for sure). As we always say here in Holland, Italians are damn good in imagining a cult status around their players (more so than Spaniards, for example). Brian Laudrup observed: "Foreign players in Italy are idolised, but if things are not going well they are hated [compared to Italian players]." 2) Possibly unfairly, Ronaldo actually received criticism (by the president himself) mid-season. That might have primed journalists and graders in a certain way. Even if people are aware of that, it is hard to ignore and switch off. Unlike the many Argentines, he was not a good Italian speaker (yet). At any rate, him finishing behind Bierhoff et al. matches with the (unfair?) criticism he frequently received mid-season. 3) This is only for Serie A. Part of Ronaldo his status was also built/sustained by what he did in Europe between 1996 and 1998, and his play for the national team. Even if he didn't do a Compostela there, he kind of approached his best form for the national team against good teams (yes I know the 1997CA had only Brazil with their A-team). Most casual fans watched only European/international games (if it is not their own league). The Oscar del Calcio also factors in the European level, and was in later years even heavily influenced by this. Totti as we know was great in Serie A but clearly less so for Italy (compared to ADP, Baggio certainly) or in Europe. Ronaldo had also a fairly unorthodox style I'd say (in his time). Many of his former team-mates stress this. Might lead to more variable ratings (higher standard deviation).
Ah, ok, yes, makes sense more to me now I think that Oscar del Calcio would factor in European displays (Ronaldo to win the vote for 97/98 or 1998 on Serie A alone is probably feasible though even if based on Serie A games and to be fair his ratings are also in the ballpark at the top end, and only slightly below Weah from 95/96 to give an example of a player in a similar role/position who was highly regarded for a particular season - of course Ronaldo is seen as the better talent/player and I understand that but to nearly match Weah's ratings from that season still gives a verdict of a very good season for Ronaldo in Serie A too). So Kaka perhaps owed quite a bit to the impressions of his CL form, in terms of receiving the award, as well as perhaps it being based on calendar year (2007) rather than the entirety of 06/07 (even though that would take out his CL games from before Christmas in theory). The fact best teams are voted for makes it seem to me like a calendar year thing too maybe, as it'd be hard to go against the league table when voting for best teams in a season, although factoring in European games could make it a bit more worthwhile and interesting to get votes on. Maybe it's a bit like with Ballon d'Or voting now though where the end of the previous season (and maybe even all of it) is considered more than the start to the new season, even if at least for 2007 the awards were handed out in late January 2008 (which is the sort of time I think makes sense for a true calendar year vote - the Ballon d'Or in the old days was decided later in December at least too IIRC).