Already one of the greatest players in history and when he has retired we might be talking about him as the greatest player ever. His goalscoring stats are out of this world and I cannot comprehend what they will look like when he's retired. He's a machine who will be in peak fitness well into his 30's.
Cristiano Ronaldo
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feck me his third goal is absolutely stunning.
Didn't someone say a couple of weeks ago his dribbling wasn't as good as before? Then explain to me what the hell that last goal was!
Incredible player, but I do hope he achieves little else at Madrid. I'm bitter like that
Incredible player, but I do hope he achieves little else at Madrid. I'm bitter like that
To seal his hattrick tonight, business as usual.
God, I love this team.
Edit - posting images from your phone sucks, here's the link, can someone at a pc fix this please?
http://m.101greatgoals.com/gvideos/hat-trick-step-over-golazo-cristiano-ronaldo-v-galatasaray-gif/
Eboue. 
To seal his hattrick tonight, business as usual.
God, I love this team.
Edit - posting images from your phone sucks, here's the link, can someone at a pc fix this please? Fixed
You run out of superlatives with this guy. He can do literally everything. I'm not even surprised any more. I just expect brilliance from him.
Really like Giggsy's goal against Arsenal in 99.
By the time the 2 retire i think he and Messi will be generally considered the 2 best players to have played the game
Cheers, Raven.
Indeed, what more can be said about this guy? The weird thing is, he wasn't particularly good and still bags another hattrick. The guy is just a phenom, for me he left the other Ronaldo behind already.
I'm pretty sure the day he hangs up his boots and someone mentions the real Ronaldo, not many will think about the Brazilian anymore.
That's how good he is. Haters like Proud Lyon and a few others should just put away the bitter lemons or jealousy and appreciate what a fantastic player he really is.
2nd best player of all time behind Messi.
Not allowed to mention the M-word in this thread.
Not allowed to mention the M-word in this thread.
No, but Essi is tha shit, man!
Seriously, that third goal was sublime.
Umm, Diego Maradona says hi?
I still find it funny when people say this guy can't really dribble and is basically a poacher.
No one is denying that he's a fantastic player, even Proud Lyon wouldn't do that. I just think it's a bit annoying that everytime he scores a hattrick or a brilliant goal against a weak opponent, people start bringing up those all time comparisons. He's probably the best goal scorer of all time, I think he surpassed Müller a while ago and he's been a better overall player than him while doing it. But - of course there's a but when I'm writing in the Ronaldo thread - no player becomes 'an all time great' or '2nd best player of all time' or 'already one of the greatest in history and might be remembered the greatest of all time when he retired' without doing more than just scoring goals. And those are just things people wrote on this one page of the thread. Sounds cheesy but it's a team sport and individual statistics might make you the best player in your team, but when your team still isn't winning, it's usually not enough. At the very least he really needs to start winning important titles again. You're a Madrid fan and you know he's playing in the most expensive team of all time, has now again one of the best managers of his generation. Scoring a hattrick and a brilliant goal in a dead game in which your opponent has basically given up means nothing in the comparison of the all time greats. And you can't even say Real isn't winning titles just because of a bogey team when you go out to a different opponent in the CL every year. The all time greats overachieved with their teams at one point in their career, they carried their teams to more than what could be expected. He needs to do that (which is probably impossible with Real anyway but at least match the expectations) and as long as people on here go into stupid hyperbole everytime he scores, someone - like me in this case - will write something against it. A brilliant tackle with a great pass that leads to a decisive goal in a truely important game means right now more for his standing in the game than scoring another 10 hattricks against average teams.
The funny thing is, you wrote, he wasn't particularly good before he scored those goals. When was the last time he was brilliant in a game without scoring? I know he's basically scoring every game, which is of course outstanding and clearly makes him the second best player of the last 5-8 years. It's just surprising, that you call it weird that he wasn't great before scoring, when that's the case for the majority of his games for at least 2 years now.
Did I enjoy his 3rd goal yesterday, when I watched the highlights? Of course, I did, fecking brilliant. But I'm seriously annoyed everytime I read this thread and people start belittling what other players did in the past to push him up to a level where he so far clearly not belongs.
If you think about what people have said about him, you would get something like this:
- he's just all about dribbling and no end product.
- he's just a poacher
- he's only good because of his great physical attributes
- he's not a good dribbler, only uses his pace to get past players.
If you rather sum them up, you'll get what he is:
- a great dribbler who now prefers to play more direct and just use his pace to get past opponents
- a terrific poacher
- great physical attributes
Those combined make up one hell of a player.
That's just your opinion. How many goals did he have against Barca? Was it not he who scored two goals against United to send them head first out of the competition? Brazilian Ronaldo wasn't about more than scoring either - they are attackers, it's what they do. What Portuguese Ronaldo offers is a more consistent goal scoring ability than anyone else with quite a few assists combined. Should he suffer as an individual player because his team doesn't play that well? He isn't the playmaker like Özil or the glue like Scholes, nor is he a leader like Gerrard, but he's still the superior player if you talk consistency etc etc. No one is belittling what other players did, but I think you are belittling Ronaldo's contribution's quite a bit. Consider this - where would RM be if not for Ronaldo at this stage?
?????
I called him the greatest goal scorer of all time and clearly the second best player of the last 5-8 years (only behind Messi). It's the all time comparison where he falls short, so I really don't understand what I'm belittling on his contribution. If someone calls him the second best player of all time only behind Messi than he clearly is belittling what Pele, Beckenbauer, Cruyff, Maradona, and a few others achieved. No idea what you're trying to say by bringing Özil, Scholes or Gerrard in the mix, of course he's clearly superior to them.
Isn't the greatest goal scorer of all time enough contribution to be recognised with players like Cruyff, Beckenbauer, Pele (who is notorious for being a goal scorer!)? I just don't understand what more you want him to do - do great tackles like Rooney and run about a bit more?
Yeah, I've always said, when they hang up their boots, the only difference will be Messi might be considered the greatest of all time - definitely top 3 whereas Ron will be considered one of the all time greats - definitely top 10.
He's probably the most complete attacker to ever play the game. Still bitter as feck he left us, hence I just can't have a "sentiment" attached to him, but my word, what a player.
I agree with that. The two of them will end up among the top ten, with one challenging for the top few in most peoples minds.
It's ridiculous when you think about it. Us having both of them doing it "in our generation" - even better, we were instrumental in developing one of them. Not to take anything away, but I do think both of them are helped by playing for 2 of the strongest teams in the world for the past 4-5 years. That's not a luxury some of the others (greats) always had.
Hence there's a need for both of them to pick it up another notch or 2 on the international stage.
I'd say the greatest goal scorer of all time before Ronaldo was Gerd Müller (398 goals in 453 league games for Bayern and 68 goals in 62 games for Germany) and he wasn't even the best player in his team, he was clearly in the shadow of a defender. I don't want more of Ronaldo, he's an incredible player. Consistently scoring a goal per game on average doesn't make you a top 5 player of all time though, especially when you're playing for the most expensive team of all time but aren't winning a lot of titles. Ronaldo can still change all that, though.
Surely that's what defines the truly elite great players. Being influential in winning/getting to finals of world cups or have been influential in winning multiple european cups.
He was also a playmaker, that's the point. The very best are more than brilliant scorers. It's what puts Messi on a different level to Ronaldo.
Fair enough, but if you look at Ronaldo's build-up play it's actually very good. He also has quite a few assists - the one to Benzema was really a peach. I do sometimes also think that players in the past may be remembered too fondly.
Well, then I fear to think how he would be like if he was playing well all the time...
I know what you are saying in the rest of your post but that bit doesn't make much sense to be honest.
This.
Ronaldo is all about the efficiency, the goals. If he doesn't score (let's face it, which is like almost never!) - he does or contributes little else and I think that's the argument Balu is making.
The argument is good enough, but as you say, he almost never walks off the pitch without scoring. From watching Messi a fair bit, he can also have matches where he can be very anonymous - I think all players have that, and I think Cruyff, Maradona, Pele had that too. We tend to forget thsoe moments with the great players, so maybe people will forget that about Ronaldo too, who knows.
Brilliant player, no matter.
All into consideration from how much the game has developed each passing decade to their impact in single games to whole campaigns, Messi and Ronaldo are the best two players in video documented football history for me.
I agree. I think Balu jumped on someone saying Ronaldo will be remembered as the 2nd greatest of all time. Which IMO, is also not true. Over time, he'll be remembered up there with the Cruyffs etc and rightly so. I just don't think he's in the Maradona/Pele/Messi bracket.
Cruyff is imo a very difficult comparison, because he as a player changed football tactics like arguably no one other in the game. I don't know if Cruyff could have matched Ronaldo's numbers if he focused solely on goal scoring. He didn't though, he had a team built around him that dominated Europe for years and made that Netherlands team in 74 one of the most exciting teams ever. That's something Ronaldo can't do, a team built around him gives him the freedom to score these days, that's it and that must be enough to win. If it's not enough, we usually blame the rest of the team. A team built around Cruyff meant he did what was necessary to win, influenced the game almost whereever the team struggled. That's a different kind of quality and that helps turning very good teams into all time great teams. You can say the same about Maradona, di Stefano or Beckenbauer. With the way he plays at the moment, C. Ronaldo as a player can't be the leader of an alltime great team, of course he could be part of it, like for example Gerd Müller with Bayern and Germany. But that's in my book always a tier below the truely greats of the game. Cruyff is imo closer to Maradona than C. Ronaldo to Cruyff. And that won't change even if Ronaldo keeps scoring 40 goals a season for 3 or 4 years, unless he changes the way he plays the game.
Cruyff is already in the that Maradona/Pele/Messi bracket.
Fair enough. Point well made.
Fair enough. I can't argue with that as I haven't seen Cruyff nearly enough.
Does Messi fit into that category considering he's done absolutely nothing with Argentina and rarely shows up, at all?
Exactly, if that's such a big factor then Iniesta should be considered better than both.
It's amazing how he can just turn it on and off based on his "happiness". He's looked a shadow of his previous self so far this season, but give him his multi-million pound new contract and suddenly he's "happy" again doing stuff like that third goal. I don't know whether to be impressed or appalled.
Messi has clearly turned a great team into one of the best of all-time and his cameo against PSG highlighted how much of a leader he now is for the side. I actually think Ronaldo showed signs of exerting that kind of influence at points last season but it's not a regular thing. Madrid have never been as reliant on Ronaldo as Barcelona were last season on Messi, and that's despite that Barcelona team being better than any Madrid side Ronaldo's played for.
If you look at the best players of all-time they have one thing in common: they were the leader of one of the greatest sides in history and they were the catalyst for them reaching that level. The only possible exception is George Best or Duncan Edwards or the various local footballing gods across the world - but then they're not widely acknowledged as being up there.
If you look at the best players of all-time they have one thing in common: they were the leader of one of the greatest sides in history and they were the catalyst for them reaching that level. The only possible exception is George Best or Duncan Edwards or the various local footballing gods across the world - but then they're not widely acknowledged as being up there.
Pele was far more than that, the 1,000 goal thing has actually had a negative impact on the way people view him because it just appears that he is all about goals which he wasn't.
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