Ronaldo wins his third FIFA player award By PHIL MINSHULL, Agence France-Presse MADRID, Spain (December 17, 2002 3:07 p.m. EST) - Ronaldo's elevation as the first player to win the FIFA World Player of the Year Award three times on Tuesday brings the curtain down on a momentous 12 months for the Brazilian. A year ago few thought it was possible, apart from Ronaldo himself and Brazilian coach Luis Felipe Scolari, that the striker would recover his fitness and form after three injury-stricken years and score eight goals on the road to Brazil winning the World Cup. "The turning point came on the day I came back in the Italian league, it felt like a turning point and made me realize that my career was not over," Ronaldo said recently. "From our first match during the qualifiers I realized that he (Ronaldo) would be our surprise player, our best goal scorer," reflected Scolari after the World Cup. "Everyone said that here was an average player because he wasn't well but I said it wasn't true. I said he could overcome anything but they just laughed at me," added Scolari, who stood firm in the face of considerable criticism over selecting Ronaldo for the World Cup finals. Despite worries over his injury-prone knees, that thrilling performance in Japan and Korea secured a 45-million-euro ($44.1-million) move from Inter Milan to Spain's European champions Real Madrid. With Madrid he went on to score in the Intercontinental Cup, or world club championship, earlier this month in a 2-0 victory over Paraguay's Olimpia as he returned to the scene of his World Cup triumph in the Japanese city of Yokohama. His two goalscoring feats to win world titles for both club and country have also earned him the prestigious European Footballer of the Year award, announced by France Football on Monday, as well as a myriad of other awards. Technically perfect, perfectly balanced, strong, fast and with an innate goal-scoring sense most other players could only admire, Ronaldo has terrorised opposition defences and thrilled spectators wherever he goes. His foot movement and dribbling skills are on occasions so mesmerising they have to be seen in slow motion for the perfection of their execution to be fully appreciated. Ronaldo grew up in modest surroundings in Rio de Janeiro and played his early soccer with amateur clubs Social Ramos Club and Sao Cristovao. By the time he was 16 he had signed his first professional contract with Cruzeiro de Belo Horizonte where he excelled, scoring almost a goal a game and ending with a total of 58 goals in 60 matches. He was still only 17 when he went to sek his fortune in the El Dorado of world soccer: the European leagues. An immediate sensation at Dutch club PSV Eindhoven, Ronaldo scored 30 goals in 33 matches and was a member of the Brazilian squad that won the World Cup in the US in 1994, although he did not get to play a single minute in the United States. However, he was soon being described as the new Pele. His fame spread all over the world on the wings of lavish praise and bold headlines but the teenager from Brazil was suddenly feeling the heat of the public spotlight in a way he could never have imagined just 18 months previously. He moved to Barcelona in 1996 before switching to Inter Milan on the back of another huge transfer deal the following summer. He had quickly become the hottest property in soccer, becoming the first man to win the FIFA World Player of the Year award twice, in 1996 and 1997. Lovers of the game were licking their lips with anticipation when he arrived in France with the Brazilian squad for the World Cup in 1998. But he failed to impress in the early rounds, and was a mere shadow of himself in the final, which Brazil lost 3-0 to France. What really happened to Ronaldo before that match will perhaps never be known, but it is clear he had some sort of nervous breakdown. In November of the same year the misery continued when he ruptured tendons in his right knee in an Italian League match, putting him out of action until 2000. Recurring injuries combined with self-doubt cast a question mark over whether he would ever reach his old heights again but Ronaldo finally made it back to the national team in March 2002, three years after his last game for his country. Ronaldo admitted on Tuesday that he has had to pinch himself recently to remember that his return to the top of his profession is reality not fantasy. "I am just enjoying being here after the difficult two years I had with injuries but everything has turned out just like a dream," said the 2002 FIFA Player of the Year at the Palacio de Congresos in the Spanish capital, just a hefty kick away from Real's Santiago Bernabeu stadium. Mod Note: From now on - please place first paragraph of article on post - then place hyperlink. -Alex_1
The Brazil and Real Madrid striker won the award for a record-breaking third time, collecting the trophy from Brazil’s pentacampeao-winning coach Luiz Felipe Scolari. Ronaldo’s total of 387 points was more than double that of his closest rival, Germany’s Oliver Kahn (171) – the first goalkeeper to have been shortlisted for the award - with France’s Zinedine Zidane (141) back in third place. The “Fenomenom”, who struck eight goals at the 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan™, was the number one for 59 of the 148 national team coaches who voted, and received three times first place nomination more than Zidane (18) and Kahn (16).
Don't post entire articles, just a link. BEsides it not being allowed, I'd much rather not re-read the same thing I just read elsewhere. And all that space you wasted would be better served by talking about the topic. My comment: duh, of course he won.