Schweinsteiger is incredibly famous and admired. Having won everything there is to win in the game. Including captaining his country in a victorious World Cup final.
He's a "United legend" too, right?
Is Cristiano Ronaldo a United legend? | Poll added
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Schweinsteiger is incredibly famous and admired. Having won everything there is to win in the game. Including captaining his country in a victorious World Cup final.
He's a "United legend" too, right?
Most people don't know who David Campese is, but let me tell you that he is a rugby legend. Being a legend isn't about fame, it's more than that.
He was far more important than any other player, don't see how that can be argued against. 81 League + CL goals in those three seasons, playing as a winger. 3x UEFA team of the year, 2x our player of the year, 2x PFA player of the year, 1x Ballon d'Or. If you feel our attack, as a unit, was less impressive than our defence, then feel free to criticise some of our attackers but I don't see how you hold it against Ronaldo. Our defenders all remained after he left but the trophy count declined
Are you even reading the posts you are quoting?
The one you just quoted has the words 'achieved enough at United' in it. The first one you quoted has the words 'what they did for your team'. What has Schweinsteiger achieved at United?
The dictionary definition of a legend you were insisting we adhere to makes no mention of achieving anything for a team. Are we back to making up our own definitions again? I thought you were against that sort of thing?
See? Not only am I reading your posts, I remember them too...
I've never watched a game of rugby in my life but I know who Campese is.
I agree it's about more than fame but fame is certainly part of it. You can't be a legend if nobody knows who you are right?
Fame is useless in our case because we are talking about a United legend in United fans eyes and within United history. To me he isn't a legend, he is only a great contributor. To me there isn't a "before and after Ronaldo".
You must be being deliberately obtuse.
If you asked me if Schweinsteiger is a legend in football then the answer would be yes. But you asked me if he was a 'United legend', so I took the criteria for being a legend, applied it to his time at United, and it's a no. I did the same for Ronaldo and it's a yes.
Also I don't insist that anyone uses the dictionary definition of legend, just that it makes sense to me and I find the arbitrariness of many of the definitions people are using confusing. Someone a few posts up said that for Ronaldo to be a legend he had to leave behind a legacy. I asked him why and what specific thing he had in mind that Ronaldo had to leave behind but he just quoted my posted and ignored the question. It smacks of having an agenda, that they just don't like the idea of Ronaldo being a United legend so they come up with some unquantifiable metric to exclude him.
For the sake of moving this discussion forward let's ignore the fame part.
Can you please answer my earlier question about how you think Ronaldo can't be a legend because he didn't leave behind a legacy. Specifically what should he have left behind? Who actually makes your list of United legends because that seems a really hard criteria to meet if Ronaldo doesn't make it on these 'no legacy' grounds. Most of our greatest players just left behind records, trophies, memories etc like Ronaldo.
FFS. We're going in circles here. Your first post in the thread was this one.
Now we've got to a point where you've come up with your own set of rules for what is and isn't a United legend. Which is apparently do with achieving a specific minimum amount of success at every club he's played for in his career, in order to qualify as a legend at that club. Schweinsteiger hasn't yet met that minimum standard at United but apparently Ronaldo did. Feck know exactly where the the tipping point lies. Maybe Bastian just needs to win an FA Cup? What about an FA Cup winning goal? What about a Carling Cup winning goal? It's all semantics and you're now doing exactly what you claimed not to understand in your original post.
For me - and clearly a lot of other people - a club legend has to devote his best years as a footballer to that club. He can't go on to achiever bigger and better things at another club. You may disagree but don't do it by taking a stance that only you are allowed to define what is and isn't a United legend, while scoffing at the idea that a definition is even necessary.
By the way, Ronaldo didn't "make us the best team in the world". We've been one of the best clubs in the world for many many years and had a superb few seasons after he left us.
What would he have needed to have left behind him? He was the best player in the team in our most successful era.
Legend is an overused word and I'd regard very, very few players as legends. I'd mark Ronnie down as a great player for us but no legend. There is also a lot about him I don't like such as the diving, the tantrums, the preening self regard to the extent that I found it difficult to celebrate his footballing skills. For me I have to like footballers character as well as his accomplishments before I can hail them as some kind of legend. Eric will always be more of a legend for me for example.
There is no story about Ronaldo, he doesn't have a strong link with the club or the community, he doesn't have Best or Cantona personality, he isn't homegrown, he didn't played his best years for us, the team kept performing after him...
I don't see a narrative around Ronaldo at least not one that is linked to the club.
Welcome to the caf. A place where those who normally do their arguing solo in a lift like to congregate.
We lost the league the year after he left and haven't defended a title since. We've won three trophies in the 6 seasons since he left compared to 7 in the 6 he was here. We may have still been good but nowhere near as good without him. He's one of only four players to be considered the worlds best when he played for United. He was the best player in our best era. The personality bit is a bit weird. He was a showman who entertained the crowd like Best or Cantona did. Most of their personality that stands out above Ronaldo is the trouble they got into.
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I'd suggest that personality is far more complex than that. They shared a desire to entertain for sure but Best, for example, was a very different kind of man to Ronaldo in so many ways. To say that he was simply more trouble does him a huge disservice.
If you are trying to tell a young kid the history of the club in the future how are you going to describe the squad that won the title three times in a row, won the European Cup and made it to another European final? And what do you say about the player who was the leading scorer all those seasons, won the PFA player of the year back to back, made the PFA team of the Year 4 times in a row, scored our only goal in open play during the 08 final and was our first Balon D'Or winner since 1968? How is a player so important to the history of the club not a legend?
But when people talk about his personality they tend to focus on his boozing exploits. He lived in an era where footballers weren't followed at every turn and there were more 'characters' in the game. Ronaldo actually seems quite funny at times in interviews. I think it's unfair to consider personality when deciding if he's a legend.
A great defense probably the best in United history, an energetic and talented midfield and two incredibly talented attackers, club legend Sir Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo.
You know Ronaldo, right? Well, he is a Real Madrid legend but he became world class at Manchester.
It is possible to be a Premier League legend without being a legend of any particular club. For example, I can't think of anyone.
The focus on Best's drinking is understandable to an extent but is lazy and unfair. There was far more to the man, than any man in fact, than how much they do or do not drink.
Re definition of legend as I said each to their own. Personally I struggle to hail anyone as a legend that I can find, in some ways, to be disagreeable. I don't like the way Ronaldo behaves so he doesn't fit well into my criteria.
The best players don't tend to move from the top clubs that often in England. Would Roberto Baggio be a Serie A legend? Where would Teddy Sheringham fall for Spurs fans? He left them and had his best successes elsewhere.
In my opinion, Ibrahimovic in Serie A.
I apprciate everything Ronaldo did for the club, the way i see it he gave us only 2 seasons could have only been 1 (if it were upto him he would have left after the 42 goal season) as a world class player and i hold that against him when it comes to rating him up against other legends. I can understand and accept it was his dream to play for Madrid but a couple of more seasons at United would have been appreciated, but he clearly didn't want to play for the club bad enough, Fergie had to twist his arm just to get him to stay for another year, truth is he couldn't wait to pack his bags and leave.
A bit disrespectful the way people are rewriting the team from 07-09 as if Ronaldo did everything when there was a great defense behind him. Kind of ironic as people would get upset at that time whenever United were referred to as a "one man team".
That's the thing, I really struggle to put Ronaldo above the defense, Van der Sar and even Rooney. I really rate Ronaldo and I enjoyed his time with us he was exciting, in some games he was the only threat, but the defense was something else and he had a real partnership with Rooney, we weren't a one man team.
I've been consistent in saying what I think a United legend is. Yes achieving success at United is part of that, obviously. Congrats on being baffled by this simple concept. If Schweinsteiger achieves what Ronaldo did at United I'll consider him a legend too. Meanwhile you, apparently, will get either confused and angry that I didn't immediately call him a legend after signing or insist that he should never be a legend because he was a great player for Bayern.
Make up all the arbitrary rules you want if it makes you feel better. Just don't expect me to agree with them if they make no sense. Why does it matter so much that Ronaldo was also successful at Madrid? How does that even exclude Ronaldo when he won more for us than he did for them?
And yes Ronaldo did make us the best team in the world, that was when we won the CL in 2008. We couldn't have done it without him and we haven't reached that level since he left.
I think so.
He is obviously in the bracket of the best players to ever play for United. He was pivotal in us winning the champions league in 2008. Other than whats been said theres not much more I can add regarding him as a footballer.
He spent 6 successful years here and imo didn't act like a twat when it came to getting his move. We all knew he going to Spain at one point. He was respectful to the manager and the fans and always has good words for the club. He got the club £80 million and contributed massively on the pitch, hence why he left on good terms. His loyalty is evidently not up there with other legends but his contribution and entertainment factor make him a legend of some sort.
One question I have - why do so many of you say he is a dick? What do you base this on?
He is one of the biggest contributors to charity in the sport. I know a guy who travels the world to attain autographs to sell. He has lost count how many times he has met Ronaldo and he says he always has time for fans. Messi on the other hand is very unapproachable and rarely speaks to anyone be it a fan or paparazzi. People think Messi is an angel because on the pitch he seems humble whereas Ronaldo seems conceited.
I think people like to call him a cock because it's the concensus amongst tabloid newspapers how vein he is. It is understandable if people are jealous but calling him names which aren't justified seem unfair to me.
Maybe I've misread the situation and people are jovially calling him a dick because he is extremely confident in himself.
He is obviously in the bracket of the best players to ever play for United. He was pivotal in us winning the champions league in 2008. Other than whats been said theres not much more I can add regarding him as a footballer.
He spent 6 successful years here and imo didn't act like a twat when it came to getting his move. We all knew he going to Spain at one point. He was respectful to the manager and the fans and always has good words for the club. He got the club £80 million and contributed massively on the pitch, hence why he left on good terms. His loyalty is evidently not up there with other legends but his contribution and entertainment factor make him a legend of some sort.
One question I have - why do so many of you say he is a dick? What do you base this on?
He is one of the biggest contributors to charity in the sport. I know a guy who travels the world to attain autographs to sell. He has lost count how many times he has met Ronaldo and he says he always has time for fans. Messi on the other hand is very unapproachable and rarely speaks to anyone be it a fan or paparazzi. People think Messi is an angel because on the pitch he seems humble whereas Ronaldo seems conceited.
I think people like to call him a cock because it's the concensus amongst tabloid newspapers how vein he is. It is understandable if people are jealous but calling him names which aren't justified seem unfair to me.
Maybe I've misread the situation and people are jovially calling him a dick because he is extremely confident in himself.
The story is that he came to us a teenage talent, developed into the best player in the world, and was the single biggest factor (behind Ferguson) in trophy after trophy.
I disagree with that and will always disagree.
Agree with this, Vidic and Ferdinand were colossal, then you had VDS and Evra who were world class. The spine of the team was so strong, hence the success.
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It's not that he's also been successful at Madrid. As an example, Henry was successful at Barcelona, yet he's still, rightly, one of Arsenal's biggest legends.
So it's not about being successful elsewhere. It's that Ronaldo's played, by far, his best football in a Madrid shirt. He's also more synonymous with them than us. Plus he made it clear that Madrid's records meant more to him than United's when he made that move.
And (here's the crucial bit for me) Madrid are of similar standing to United. It's not even like he's gone on to a much bigger club, where United fans can truly take some sort of pride in his performances.
Bingo. I wouldn't bother if I were you.
How can one of our most entertaining footballers in recent times not be a legend?
You don't have to retire at the club or play as many games as Giggs to be a legend you just need to be so extraordinary that you stand out and will forever be associated to the club. I wonder if he'd come here as his final club at the end of his career would be looked on by some differently?
All definitions of course, some people consider legends to be club heroes, on that I'd agree with the naysayers.
The legend of Bebe will live on though that's for sure......
You don't have to retire at the club or play as many games as Giggs to be a legend you just need to be so extraordinary that you stand out and will forever be associated to the club. I wonder if he'd come here as his final club at the end of his career would be looked on by some differently?
All definitions of course, some people consider legends to be club heroes, on that I'd agree with the naysayers.
The legend of Bebe will live on though that's for sure......
Indeed. Because "decent" and "excellent" mean the exact same thing.
Serge Blanco!
That's a no.
Absolutely not.
No.
Ronaldo became the best in the world while at Real. He definitely preferred Real over us. He is a Madrid legend.
It is somewhat like Cantona. He is our legend. Nobody cares where he played before that. Nobody cares where Ronaldo played before Madrid.
Ronaldo became the best in the world while at Real. He definitely preferred Real over us. He is a Madrid legend.
It is somewhat like Cantona. He is our legend. Nobody cares where he played before that. Nobody cares where Ronaldo played before Madrid.
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