It's impossible to have any kind of intellectual conversation with you though when it comes to Ronaldo, you think the sun shines out of his ass, that much is obvious.
Cristiano Ronaldo - Much Ado About Al Nassr
- Thread starter Bastian
- Start date
You made some fair points but then you go and mention Ramos. What exactly does he have over Ronaldo? He was poor for PSG last season and has generally been worse for Portugal under Martinez than Ronaldo.
I stated facts but you’ve decided to now shift the point of discussion. It’s fine though.
Martinez out there warping the entire team in order to fit Ronaldo in the starting lineup whilst trying to handicap themselves as little as possible. Means some better players won't start. People saying he's not "that bad". Well think about all the tactical implications. You can't play a normal modern football game with him up front. You're defending with 9 men, not 10 so every other player on the team need to compensate.
The hatred is mind blowing. I was honestly shocked about how decent he was. He made runs all game ans actually participated in the game. Far from a bad game from him. Portugal was the better side and they created a lot. If anything I was surprised by how well the team looked with him in it. Will be interesting too see if they can go on from here
Sure you did mate. Anyway I'll leave you to your delusion.
He's right though. Juve's team cohesion and results got noticeably worse right after Ronaldo joined. Quite a few Juve fans were happy to see him leave.
Martinez is as much a problem as Ronaldo is imo.
He played well from the highlights I saw. Made goal threat contributions.
That doesn’t mean he’s right and neither does it mean it was because of him they got worse. I would argue he probably masked their problems with his brilliance. Their team was aging massively. The year Ronaldo left, more than half of the team he started with in 2018 retired or were playing at a much lower level. Since he’s left, they haven’t been better either and only got worse.
Why didn’t you argue any of my counterpoints and only focused on the point that I can supposedly see Ronaldo do no wrong?
I thought he did ok tonight , they will get way firmer tests than that though .
I'm not Portuguese, so I don't know wether he should or shouldn't start .
Martinez will live or die by it . That's where the finger will point .
I'm not Portuguese, so I don't know wether he should or shouldn't start .
Martinez will live or die by it . That's where the finger will point .
Jota make so much sense than Ronaldo.
I think plenty of people went over this subject many times before. Your point about the aging team is valid, which doesn't mean Ronaldo didn't heavily contribute in making Juve a worse team. He was identified as a problem at Juve, and then even more so at United, due to the one-dimensional nature of his game, coupled with a lack of effort and a massive ego. A very negative combination indeed.
Also let's not forget that Ronaldo's huge transfer fee and massive wages prevented Juve from rejuvenating and strenghtening the team.
If Juve's sporting directors could travel back in time, no way they make the same mistake again. Ronaldo at Juve was a massive sporting failure.
I think a good comparison is when we had Ruud van Nistelrooy. You couldn't say Ruud made us worse because he was scoring goals and just one of the best finishers we have seen in the PL. But there is no denying that we became much more unpredictable in attack with the less prolific Saha up front diversifying our attack with the likes of Rooney, Ronaldo and Giggs all finding new freedom to find spaces from different areas of the pitch. For our team pre- Ronaldo and Rooney, RvN was the best fit but once we had that kind of talent coming through, the trade off between his goals and forcing us to play through him made him a net negative. The question for Portugal I guess is just how good the talent around him really is? I am really undecided on that one as a lot of those players look good in tailor made systems that makes it harder to judge them individually and some are too young to fully gauge their game changing ability.
I agree it was probably a sporting failure but by no fault of his own. Juve should’ve known that they didn’t have the finances to facilitate his transfer plus wages and still invest in the team adequately. That’s on them not Ronaldo. He fulfilled his part of the deal when you look at his numbers and also performances in the majority of the big games - especially in his first 2 seasons there. In the CL he was basically scoring all of their goals barring the last season.
Also, what about his game was one-dimensional exactly? He was consistenly in Juve’s top 5 most creative players along with him scoring all the goals. I feel you guys just slap this on to arguments for arguments sake. Halaand is even more one-dimensional than Ronaldo is/was and playing in a team at a significantly higher level than Ronaldo’s Juve were but I don’t see anyone saying he holds them back. The team Ronaldo played with at Juve was nowhere near good enough to win the CL. The closest they could’ve gotten was in his first season when he was still beasting in the competition. After that, no chance. The rest of the team was not up to scratch. They were just good enough to win the league and cup which they did do.
I suspect they know this but just don’t want to admit it.
Of course you would
Thats an incredible take, even that mental Sporting fan that used to post would be proud of that.
It's all relative. Replacing RvN with Ronaldo and Rooney is an upgrade. Replacing Ronaldo with Weghorst is a downgrade.
Hard to see him being dropped, although he’s playing in the Saudi league he’s still scoring goals at a record pace. I’m not a Ronaldo fan by any means but probably he is the only natural goalscorer they have on the team and is very difficult to drop him. At the last World Cup his form was horrible going into it and deservedly got dropped from the starting line up.
It was indeed Juve's fault for only seeing the great goalscorer he still was and failing to see the limited all-around player he had become.
No one questions his numbers at Juve. His stats speak for themselves. His performances can be questioned however. Even a good goal tally isn't enough in modern football when you offer little else on the pitch.
I remember watching many Juve games as a neutral, Ronaldo was playing poorly but ends up scoring, and thinking that it wasn't good enough, that it wasn't gonna cut it, that I wasn't watching one of the best players in the world, but just an excellent striker, like Icardi at Inter.
Haaland at City is like Ronaldo at Madrid in 2014-18. I'm talking about their roles in the team. A great team behind them that takes care of everything and provides a lot of goal-scoring opportunities for them. Put them in a different environement and it's a different story. Also Haaland offers more than Ronaldo at Juve. He's faster and stronger, he can outmuscle defenders, weigh on them and his explosiveness allows him to make more efficient runs behind the defense either from sequences of possession or from counter attacks. He's been criticized this season, partly because he's been less clinical.
He was more than okay, and he is definitey not their biggest problem. I don't like him, but some od the criticism is ridiculous. Bernardo and Leao looked to be far worse problem for them than Ronaldo.
Messi was shit for PSG when you compare league quality to Serie A Juventus.
If Ronaldo should have won a CL for Juventus then Messi should have for PSG with players like Mbappe and Neymar - which you could argue was on paper better than Neymar-Suarez-Messi.
Juventus had no one - not even Pogba's quality in comparison to PSG's!
Messi never won a CL with another club or post Pep's coaching transitioning to Luis Enrique first season.
Ronaldo is bloody 40 years old and playing as a striker because he is too old to play as a winger now.
Feel like the Messi fanboys are now trying to bust Ronaldo down every chance they get.
Ever since Ronaldo played his second stint at United aka England aka the hardest league in the world for two decades now - people's view on Ronaldo's has gone down & you have fans who actually hate him.
He was like 35 or something when he came here to the toughest league but made our game too one directional the same way strikers like Zlatan and even Hojlund did for our all round team play because he became a striker more than a winger as he aged.
Still scored plenty in the toughest league whilst Messi played for pure money at Ligue 1 for PSG & never had the guts to play in any of the toughest league in the world not once in his career. Pure ease just like his goals looks aesthetically pleasing because of how easy he makes it look.
Ronaldo played twice in the PL. A legend in his first stint and a good but declining player in his 2nd stint scoring and assisting 21 goals in 30 games in the bloody PL.
Now come at me Messi fan boys being Messy with me
Not one mention of how he performed in last night's game. Take this nonsense to the Messi v Ronaldo threads.
Also wants to play at the next world cup.
These Ronaldo fanboys are absolutely unreal. It's scary how obsessed they are with someone who wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire, and doesn't know they exist. Celebrity worship and cultism is worse than ever. Many of his fans are Americans who are obsessed with stats, celebrity and athleticism too, like that IShowSpeed guy.
Messi, Maradona, Pele, Cruyff et al have far better passing, dribbling, playmaking etc, and more talent in their ballsack than this charlatan has in his entire body, too many modern fans are stats obsessed. I don't think I have EVER seen anyone who gets arse-licked to the extent this creepy fecker does. The **** around him is absolutely insane. Parasocial relationships are real.
Why can't his fans just admit that Messi (who is also a bellend to be fair) is a far superior player? What issues will it cause in their lives if they criticise Ronaldo for once? They are so creepily protective of him. Ronaldo doesn't deserve to be treated like he's better than a much better player, this whole 'debate' is a media-created fantasy. I am older than both Ronaldo and Messi, been watching and playing football extensively since the 80s - it's abundantly clear there's a chasm the size of the Grand Canyon between them as footballers (Maradona too pisses on Ronaldo from a great height, as do Pele, L Ronaldo etc). It's the same with the media and TV coverage - constantly zooming on on Ronaldo's ugly, plastic face when he's not even in Portugal's top five players anymore. I have never seen such hype and hysteria, apart from maybe with the scummy royals and Princess Diana. Portugal aren't even a real team - for the last 16 years they have debased themselves and might as well rename themselves 'The Ronaldo circus'. He's had a seriously destabilising effect on them - always been invisible every game they exit a tournament, and the one time they won he had to be subbed off early in the game. What an embarrassment Portugal are - they've become a vehicle for one pitiful man's ego trip. They will never win this tournament with him (to be honest I said both England and Portugal's squads were overhyped before the tournament and I tend to be right often on football, I predicted in summer 2023 that your man Ten Hag will be gone by 2025 and that looks likely to come true too). But back to Ronaldo - he's a massive liability on and off the pitch. Martinez is far too much of a weak, spineless coward to ever drop him.
Also, people in here are saying that Ronaldo played well last night? Seriously? That simply proves the low standards he's judged by and how protected he is. If Messi, Lukaku, Nunez or Mudryk put in the performance Ronaldo did last night, they would be destroyed. But Mr Protected Ronaldo just had to do the bare mininum (the odd shot and and a back pass from a free-kick) to draw admiration. I believe he is judged by low standards - I have seen him have loads of poor games, but he gets on the end of a chance and people act like he was Man of the Match.
Ronaldo scores a lot of goals (though context is never added), but as a footballer he isn't a genius, nowhere near. All of us long-term football fans (ie not the kids who grew up watching Ronaldo or started following the game five minutes ago and have never kicked a ball in their lives) know when we are watching a genius, and he's not one. He just does the regular consistently. He makes too many mistakes relative to the greatest players ever, whose touch and technical fundamentals were brilliant all of the time. Ronaldo's game is very rudimentary in comparison. His touch, dribbling, passing are all very hit and miss and were even in his 'prime'. He totally lacks a world-class playmaking component to be the greatest ever, and is far too reliant on physicality/athleticism. I'd argue the likes of Neymar, Hazard and Iniesta are more talented than him (hardly a controversial claim), never mind Messi, Pele, Maradona, Beckenbauer, Di Stefano, L Ronaldo, Zico, Platini and Cruyff (and others). This guy is the champion of PR, media hype and celebrity worship - a great player but in the all-time great debate an absolute fraud. He maybe limps into the top 10 players of all time. He should never be considered in the company of the players I mentioned above, and the idea that he makes his way into the holy trinity (Pele, Messi, Maradona) to create a four is absolutely offensive beyond words as a football fan, and an insult to the superior players he supposedly leapfrogs.
Here's my theory about Ronaldo: Ronaldo is deeply insecure and has a desperate need to be loved, and the same goes for his followers who predominantly worship him because they crave the adulation he receives from some - they live vicariously through him. To be fair, when the majority acknowledge you're inferior to your rival it's easier to feel insecure. Ronaldo will always have a victim complex (that is shared by his ****) because he's deluded enough to think he's better than Messi so he will see the general consensus of Messi being better as an injustice - until the day he dies. That's where all the bollocks pseudo shite about 'the world being against him' and 'proving people wrong' and that cringey 'your love makes me strong, your hate makes me unstoppable' garbage comes from. He thinks the world unjustly hates him and unfairly considers messi as better. In his mind that's a lie because he is a narcissist. If he had any self-awareness or brain cells or humility he'd be at peace - he'd recognise there are many reasons to hate him or his game due to his personality, his attitude, his style of play post 2015, the rape allegations, and myriad other scandals. He'd also realise he was inferior as a player to his rival (significantly so). He'd be happy being acknowledged as a great player and somewhere in the top 10. However, the fact is he lives in a yes man bubble surrounded by sycophants. He can't admit these truths to himself which highlights that he is unintelligent and lacks self-awareness. He has zero ability to self-reflect and evaluate himself correctly. People who buy their own hype are often the silliest people. The irony is if he just accepted these things and that he's nowhere near Maradona or Messi, he'd find much MUCH more peace. But he will go on torturing himself with his delusions until the day he dies. I'd almost feel sorry for him if he wasn't so creepy and demented and didn't have serious allegations hanging over his head.
TL DR? The worship of the guy is beyond farce at this stage. It has gone WAY too far and is much bigger than superior players from history. There's too much wanking off over quantitative aspects and 'longevity' - no proper football fan cares about them. What real fans care about is the beauty of the game and how good someone is at their peak. Haaland scores more goals in a season than Iniesta did in his career, but who's a far superior footballer? You'd think any novice could understand the qualitative aspects of football, but apparently not. I rest my case.
Messi, Maradona, Pele, Cruyff et al have far better passing, dribbling, playmaking etc, and more talent in their ballsack than this charlatan has in his entire body, too many modern fans are stats obsessed. I don't think I have EVER seen anyone who gets arse-licked to the extent this creepy fecker does. The **** around him is absolutely insane. Parasocial relationships are real.
Why can't his fans just admit that Messi (who is also a bellend to be fair) is a far superior player? What issues will it cause in their lives if they criticise Ronaldo for once? They are so creepily protective of him. Ronaldo doesn't deserve to be treated like he's better than a much better player, this whole 'debate' is a media-created fantasy. I am older than both Ronaldo and Messi, been watching and playing football extensively since the 80s - it's abundantly clear there's a chasm the size of the Grand Canyon between them as footballers (Maradona too pisses on Ronaldo from a great height, as do Pele, L Ronaldo etc). It's the same with the media and TV coverage - constantly zooming on on Ronaldo's ugly, plastic face when he's not even in Portugal's top five players anymore. I have never seen such hype and hysteria, apart from maybe with the scummy royals and Princess Diana. Portugal aren't even a real team - for the last 16 years they have debased themselves and might as well rename themselves 'The Ronaldo circus'. He's had a seriously destabilising effect on them - always been invisible every game they exit a tournament, and the one time they won he had to be subbed off early in the game. What an embarrassment Portugal are - they've become a vehicle for one pitiful man's ego trip. They will never win this tournament with him (to be honest I said both England and Portugal's squads were overhyped before the tournament and I tend to be right often on football, I predicted in summer 2023 that your man Ten Hag will be gone by 2025 and that looks likely to come true too). But back to Ronaldo - he's a massive liability on and off the pitch. Martinez is far too much of a weak, spineless coward to ever drop him.
Also, people in here are saying that Ronaldo played well last night? Seriously? That simply proves the low standards he's judged by and how protected he is. If Messi, Lukaku, Nunez or Mudryk put in the performance Ronaldo did last night, they would be destroyed. But Mr Protected Ronaldo just had to do the bare mininum (the odd shot and and a back pass from a free-kick) to draw admiration. I believe he is judged by low standards - I have seen him have loads of poor games, but he gets on the end of a chance and people act like he was Man of the Match.
Ronaldo scores a lot of goals (though context is never added), but as a footballer he isn't a genius, nowhere near. All of us long-term football fans (ie not the kids who grew up watching Ronaldo or started following the game five minutes ago and have never kicked a ball in their lives) know when we are watching a genius, and he's not one. He just does the regular consistently. He makes too many mistakes relative to the greatest players ever, whose touch and technical fundamentals were brilliant all of the time. Ronaldo's game is very rudimentary in comparison. His touch, dribbling, passing are all very hit and miss and were even in his 'prime'. He totally lacks a world-class playmaking component to be the greatest ever, and is far too reliant on physicality/athleticism. I'd argue the likes of Neymar, Hazard and Iniesta are more talented than him (hardly a controversial claim), never mind Messi, Pele, Maradona, Beckenbauer, Di Stefano, L Ronaldo, Zico, Platini and Cruyff (and others). This guy is the champion of PR, media hype and celebrity worship - a great player but in the all-time great debate an absolute fraud. He maybe limps into the top 10 players of all time. He should never be considered in the company of the players I mentioned above, and the idea that he makes his way into the holy trinity (Pele, Messi, Maradona) to create a four is absolutely offensive beyond words as a football fan, and an insult to the superior players he supposedly leapfrogs.
Here's my theory about Ronaldo: Ronaldo is deeply insecure and has a desperate need to be loved, and the same goes for his followers who predominantly worship him because they crave the adulation he receives from some - they live vicariously through him. To be fair, when the majority acknowledge you're inferior to your rival it's easier to feel insecure. Ronaldo will always have a victim complex (that is shared by his ****) because he's deluded enough to think he's better than Messi so he will see the general consensus of Messi being better as an injustice - until the day he dies. That's where all the bollocks pseudo shite about 'the world being against him' and 'proving people wrong' and that cringey 'your love makes me strong, your hate makes me unstoppable' garbage comes from. He thinks the world unjustly hates him and unfairly considers messi as better. In his mind that's a lie because he is a narcissist. If he had any self-awareness or brain cells or humility he'd be at peace - he'd recognise there are many reasons to hate him or his game due to his personality, his attitude, his style of play post 2015, the rape allegations, and myriad other scandals. He'd also realise he was inferior as a player to his rival (significantly so). He'd be happy being acknowledged as a great player and somewhere in the top 10. However, the fact is he lives in a yes man bubble surrounded by sycophants. He can't admit these truths to himself which highlights that he is unintelligent and lacks self-awareness. He has zero ability to self-reflect and evaluate himself correctly. People who buy their own hype are often the silliest people. The irony is if he just accepted these things and that he's nowhere near Maradona or Messi, he'd find much MUCH more peace. But he will go on torturing himself with his delusions until the day he dies. I'd almost feel sorry for him if he wasn't so creepy and demented and didn't have serious allegations hanging over his head.
TL DR? The worship of the guy is beyond farce at this stage. It has gone WAY too far and is much bigger than superior players from history. There's too much wanking off over quantitative aspects and 'longevity' - no proper football fan cares about them. What real fans care about is the beauty of the game and how good someone is at their peak. Haaland scores more goals in a season than Iniesta did in his career, but who's a far superior footballer? You'd think any novice could understand the qualitative aspects of football, but apparently not. I rest my case.
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Especially Leao looked like he was playing well within his ability. Deserves to be dropped tbh.
This is ridiculous and not even close to the truth. I’m sure it won’t take long to find stats that totally debunk this. Halaand is the quintessential poacher. The very embodiment of someone that does absolutely nothing outside of goals. Ronaldo at Juve is levels upon levels above him as a football player.
I’ve seen so many games where Halaand has touched the ball once or twice by half time. Ronaldo at Juve didn’t even play as the sole striker for his team the majority of the time. Not sure if we’re even watching the same players at this point.
Not true, and Ronaldo pretty much proved that at Juve. He was still able to score despite being older and playing with teammates that were much worse. His all-round game was arguably even better in first 2 seasons at Juve than it was in his last seasons at Real Madrid. He was dribbling more per game and his heat map was more out wide.
You are absolutely shameless with your rewriting of history
I am gonna ask you a question and I'd like a serious answer. Has Ronaldo ever made a mistake in his life, according to you? I've lurked on here for years and I swear 99 per cent of your posts are basically being an unpaid member of Ronaldo's PR Team
It's creepy mate - you do realise even the clown himself would probably think you were weird? I have honestly never seen the kind of extremism that his fans dabble in. Royalists are very illogical people, but even they don't seem as bad as 'Cristiano' fanboys.Argue my point then rather than saying all of nothing. I’m ready to back it up too. Their team was pretty bad 2018 onwards. I’m not even sure why it’s such an incredible take if you actually tuned in to watch some of their games.Of course you would
Thats an incredible take, even that mental Sporting fan that used to post would be proud of that.
My God. There’s obsession and there’s this. Do you actually support a football team? Or are you just a full time disciple of Ronaldo FC?To be very fair Pogue you do whinge about Ronaldo a fair bit
I think all the fans and haters should just get it over and done with and feck…
Not sure why you guys can’t seem to stay on topic. What does any of this have to do with my point? He was dribbling more per game at Juve from the stats. Why does that warrant your post?
How am I rewriting history. All the stats are there to see. Go rewatch some games if you want. I won’t even bother with the rest of your post.You are absolutely shameless with your rewriting of history
I am gonna ask you a question and I'd like a serious answer. Has Ronaldo ever made a mistake in his life, according to you? I've lurked on here for years and I swear 99 per cent of your posts are basically being an unpaid member of Ronaldo's PR Team
I disagree.
someone was spot on earlier, it's eerily similar to Trump fans.Science should be studying the people still posting about Ronaldo vs Messi with sincerity.
Makes no sense being part of starting 11 in this stage of his career. In fact, makes no sense any player from Saudi League to even be part of the Euro squad, but this group is so weak we can actually use those players and probably win every match.
Having said that, it was a decent performance to be honest. But he's not so prolific and mobile as he used to be, unfortunately.
Having said that, it was a decent performance to be honest. But he's not so prolific and mobile as he used to be, unfortunately.
Actually the confidence from scoring for fun in the Saudi League might work in his favour as playing in a league with lower intensity and standards. It keeps him more fresh for the only part of his career that still matters, the national team.
Im poor this month so i can only watch the euro games broadcasted on national telly and unfortunately they didnt show Portugal. I get the impression that he looked better than in the 2022 wc. Of course that's hardly an achievement, but he's 39 now.
To be very fair Pogue you do whinge about Ronaldo a fair bit
I think all the fans and haters should just get it over and done with and feck…
I definitely have a bad habit of getting slightly obsessed by celebrities I dislike and their deluded fans. You should see how many posts I have in the Taylor Swift thread! I just can’t get past the weirdness of someone falling so deeply in love with a footballer that they end up studying heat maps about his performances, ten years after he last kicked a ball for the team they support!