Ronaldo vs Ronaldo

[RAVred]

R9 at his peak was insane. Easily the best striker ever in my eyes in terms of what I've seen.


Overall Cristiano has obviously had a better career due to maintaining his body better amongst other factors.


For me R9 was the better player, as I look at players at their absolute best. And R9's peak wasnt a few months, he did perform for several separate seasons and two separate world cups.

 

[MrEleson]

there's no doubting that Cristiano, while extremely talented, was nowhere near in any kind of best player in the world discussions in his late teens/early 20s, merely a potential thing - which as you can imagine is very much a credit to what he became as an athlete and as a footballer).

C.Ronaldo finished 2nd in the Ballon D'or at 22 (many would say he should have won) and won it a year later when he was 23. He probably wasn't as good as R9 was at the same age but he was in the discussion for best player in the world from when he was 21 or thereabouts. He finished 10th in the Ballon D'or in 2006 and by the time that ranking was made he was already in the top 5 players in Europe or maybe even the best.

 

[dumbo]

Yeah and 21 is nearly 20 which is only 12 months from a teenager and basically we may as well say that Cristiano was more or less, almost, sort of the best in the world at the same age as Ronaldo. Cristiano needs defending - to the statcave boys!

 

[DJ Jeff]

Yeah and 21 is nearly 20 which is only 12 months from a teenager and basically we may as well say that Cristiano was more or less, almost, sort of the best in the world at the same age as Ronaldo. Cristiano needs defending - to the statcave boys!

I'll follow you!

 

[MrEleson]

Guys that we still consider young prospects or talents are already older than Ronaldo was when he had his legendary 07/08 season (Martial) or as old as he was when he was outperforming the likes of PRIME Drogba, prime Lampard, Gerrard, etc circa 2006-2007 (Rashford). Also in a league where there were top defenders like peak Terry, A.Cole, Sol Campbell, Ledley King, etc.

21-24 year old C.Ronaldo is arguably the best player in premier league history and one of the best players in their early 20s to play the game. Certainly eons ahead of players in the same age bracket today.

C.Ronaldo's hard-work only made him last freakishly long at the top. His level can't be reached by merely working hard. It requires a talent level that very very few players will have.

 

[Zehner]

I mean, there’s a thread right now where people are making an XI of the past 40 years and about half are putting him on the bench

It’s 2019 and he’s getting compared to Muller, Eusebio, R9 and Ronaldinho... the same people he was getting compared to 5 years ago.

This place might be a United forum but it’s no different from other general football forums when it comes to these things. He’s a top 5 player of all time that pissed too many people off and gets scrutinized far more than any other player because loads of people don’t like him. Go back 2 years and there were serious arguments here over the advantages and disadvantages of Manchester United signing Lukaku, Morata, Belotti or Cristiano Ronaldo ffs.

That's maybe because every single player you mentioned has something speaking for him. It is not a completely irrational decision to take those players at their respective peaks ahead of Cristiano.

Football after all is a sport that is hard to operationalize. There is no profound statistical model to translate the impact of a player in a concrete score or something like that. So people understand the game differently and asign certain aspects of a player's skills different importances and of course that's where biases and preferences mix with rational evaluations. You exemplarily rate the impact of off the ball movement and runs far higher than I do but I can't prove you wrong just like you can't do it to me. My issue simply is that I don't think you rate Cristiano the way you do because of how you view the game but you view the game how you do because you want to rate Ronaldo.

Anyway, that's a different topic. What I actually wanted to say is that it is not solely down to romanticism or a Cristiano's at times dislikeable character that people choose the way they do. There's no conspiracy against Cristiano at work, people simply don't rate him the way you do. It is highly arrogant that you always play their opinions down to romanticism, a bias for aesthetics or a prejudice against CR7.

I think in the end it comes down to the question what is more important for a footballer, doing the easy things consistently right or doing things that nobody else could do (and actually putting those things to work efficiently)? In general, it seems like the majority of football fans intuitively prefer the latter because otherwise guys like Iniesta would be held in higher regard than somebody like Zidane or Ronaldinho. I believe this to be the actual issue for you because that's where it "goes wrong" for Cristiano in people's perception compared to yours.

 

[Zehner]

I can bet you, if Ronaldo was the pretentiously 'humble and meek' type of guy and was generally liked by everyone, nobody will be disrespecting him like they do now (comparing him with R9, Eusebio, Gerd Muller who are far inferior players compared to him objectively).
Cristiano Ronaldo is the greatest player ever, but the thing is, among the pantheon of the top 4 greats down to even the 20th, he's the most divisive...it's either you abhor and hate him (while pretending to be neutral and objective), or you love him to bits...there's no neutrality, absolutely non and every single person on this forum knows that, if they're being honest with themselves.
But as time goes on, in maybe 15-20 years, I genuinely think the only player that will still be mentioned along with Cristiano Ronaldo will be Pele...not maradona or messi, nostalgia has a way of doing things...the bigger your achievemnts, the more fondly you'll be remembered; he has ticked all the buttons (except a little thing about world cup), while Messi hasn't despite being a better dribbler. So, no need to sweat out anything, he's still the most divisive player in the world now, let the dust settle after he has retired then we'll see more clear-minded opinions from 'neutrals' and the younger generations

Honestly, this narrative is bullshit. I don't give two shits about his behaviour or character. I watch football and care for the sport, not some kind of soap in which you worry about relationships, actions and what not. I hate it when "sports journalism" emphasizes on this kind of things and in the same way I don't care about narratives and stories surrounding their personalities (humble Messi, competitive Cristiano and all this stuff..). In the end, I simply don't see the things in Cristiano you guys see when he is actually on the football pitch. I never rated goal scorers as highly as playmakers and dribblers and while I know that Cristiano is of course far more than that, to me he is not at GOAT level in the other aspects of his game. But R9 encorporated that during his peak like few others ever did. He had a toolset that no other player before or after him possessed and he sure as hell knew how to use it. And that's why people pick R9's peak ahead of Cristiano's. That's probably the one big strain on Cristiano's career: He never peaked as highly as other greats and during his legacy defining moments, his peak was already long gone. That's why his overall game is nowadays probably even underrated. Yet it was never as good as R9's pre-injuries.

 

[RedRonaldo]

It's crazy to say that Cristiano hasn't had the better career - he blatantly has. There are other factors to this though - and Ronaldo's injuries/decline (post the World Cup - after that he became a bit more overweight etc) weren't through a lack of physical discipline that is oft levelled at the likes of Ronaldinho/Adriano etc - he had two freak injuries one after the other, both very much career threatening. Additionally, Ronaldo obviously made some bad career choices (e.g. the move to Inter etc).

But everyone who saw Ronaldo at his absolutely peak knows what an absolute monster of a player he was.

Would he have kept it up? Was that merely his trajectory (as he developed as a player) or as that always going to be his peak regardless of the injuries etc? We'll never know for sure, and that adds a bit of nostalgic romanticism to his greatness, that I will grant you.

Another thing we will never know is how much (if at all) the 98 World Cup did affect Ronaldo - Physically? Emotionally? Mentally?

What is for sure though is:

• By the time the 98 World Cup came around, and certainly following his last PSV season, a season at Barcelona, and a couple of Inter seasons in, by his late teens/early 20s, he was being talked about as possibly the greatest player ever. Don't make me laugh with Mbappe comparisons - a fantastic player in his own right, but Ronaldo had more talent in his pinky etc. The closest I have seen to this is Messi, but even he wasn't quite being talked about in those terms at that age, but certainly as a possible contender for the throne. (Caveat: there's no doubting that Cristiano, while extremely talented, was nowhere near in any kind of best player in the world discussions in his late teens/early 20s, merely a potential thing - which as you can imagine is very much a credit to what he became as an athlete and as a footballer). Anyone bringing up statistics of how Ronaldo didn't score a goal a game or had a greater number of goals than games played (like Messi/Ronaldo have to an extent) is an absolute fool who knows nothing about football. He was nearing a goal a game at PSV and Barcelona and then he moved to the most difficult league in the world for strikers and had a great season before the World Cup and then a half season before injury struck. Anyone bringing up trophies is also an absolute fool. In case you haven't realised, football IS a team sport.
• Before his injuries, he definitely grew as a football player. At PSV/Barcelona, he was very much a Mbappe-style player, except just better in every possible way. By the time he'd moved to Inter, he became a playmaker too to an extent (not quite what Messi is, but certainly more than most strikers are). So he was definitely capable of a better trajectory, not an Owen-style young prodigy (who was bloody good at what he did) but faded away once the pace went.
• Despite the two possible career threatening injuries, Ronaldo came back, won a World Cup, and for the next 3-4 seasons was one of the top 5 strikers in the world along with Henry, Shevchenko etc. Now if you only started following football around this period, this sounds absolutely crazy, but to get a better understanding of the amount of talent Ronaldo had, I'd say that the striker that came back and became 'only' one of the top 5 strikers in the world (along with someone as ridiculously good as Henry) was barely operating at 10% of what he was actually capable of.
• If he wins World Cup 98 (where he was the best player and top scorer before the final), he cements his legacy there and then, at the age of 21.

What is also for sure regarding Cristiano is that (and I don't think there can be any dispute about this) he's the greatest athlete football has ever seen.

I still remember the final match vs France. Literally everyone expected Ronaldo would lead Brazil to win that final match, and witness him cementing his legacy potentially alongside with Pele and Maradona. Turns out he had the worst game of the tournament, and left everyone hugely disappointed. Then, the rest is history, Ronaldo got badly injured many months later, and was never the same player ever again. Zidane and France went on to dominate the football world for years.

 

[djembatheking]

CR7 and many other players have far better stats and trophies accumulated but no one was as exciting to watch as R9 , a real force of nature , natural street footballer .

 

[Hala Madrid]

Honestly, this narrative is bullshit. I don't give two shits about his behaviour or character. I watch football and care for the sport, not some kind of soap in which you worry about relationships, actions and what not. I hate it when "sports journalism" emphasizes on this kind of things and in the same way I don't care about narratives and stories surrounding their personalities (humble Messi, competitive Cristiano and all this stuff..). In the end, I simply don't see the things in Cristiano you guys see when he is actually on the football pitch. I never rated goal scorers as highly as playmakers and dribblers and while I know that Cristiano is of course far more than that, to me he is not at GOAT level in the other aspects of his game. But R9 encorporated that during his peak like few others ever did. He had a toolset that no other player before or after him possessed and he sure as hell knew how to use it. And that's why people pick R9's peak ahead of Cristiano's. That's probably the one big strain on Cristiano's career: He never peaked as highly as other greats and during his legacy defining moments, his peak was already long gone. That's why his overall game is nowadays probably even underrated. Yet it was never as good as R9's pre-injuries.

I think what I said is exactly what you're doing; R9's peak is nowhere near CR7's best season, and the thing is, R7 doesn't have a definite 'peak', he's just at another stratosphere, locked in and levitating unlike a player like R9 that went all top and nose-dived in addition with his injury (not ignoring the fact that he didn't have the mental strength and discipline to get back in form at such a young age), a player like R7 is seen once in a lifetime, and from history books, it's only Pele, and Messi that have that attribute of not having a definite 'peak'.
Romanticism is what's affecting you whether you want to believe it or not.
Cristiano Ronaldo's peak is country miles ahead of the best thi g Ronaldo De lima has ever done (no disrespec to him), you just have to look beyond the wouldas, shouldas, romanticism and innate dislike of Ronaldo

 

[Zlaatan]

I still remember the final match vs France. Literally everyone expected Ronaldo would lead Brazil to win that final match, and witness him cementing his legacy potentially alongside with Pele and Maradona. Turns out he had the worst game of the tournament, and left everyone hugely disappointed. Then, the rest is history, Ronaldo got badly injured many months later, and was never the same player ever again. Zidane and France went on to dominate the football world for years.

Do you remember the surrounding story of that 98' final? There was a lot more to it than just a bad game from Brazil and Ronaldo. I also don't really see how France dominated the football world for years when Brazil won the next WC in 2002 (with Ronaldo being top scorer with 8 goals) while France finished last in their group with 1 point. Sure they won the EC in 2000 but Brazil won the CA in 1999 as well.

 

[Zehner]

I think what I said is exactly what you're doing; R9's peak is nowhere near CR7's best season, and the thing is, R7 doesn't have a definite 'peak', he's just at another stratosphere, locked in and levitating unlike a player like R9 that went all top and nose-dived in addition with his injury (not ignoring the fact that he didn't have the mental strength and discipline to get back in form at such a young age), a player like R7 is seen once in a lifetime, and from history books, it's only Pele, and Messi that have that attribute of not having a definite 'peak'.
Romanticism is what's affecting you whether you want to believe it or not.
Cristiano Ronaldo's peak is country miles ahead of the best thi g Ronaldo De lima has ever done (no disrespec to him), you just have to look beyond the wouldas, shouldas, romanticism and innate dislike of Ronaldo

It really isn't. R9 did things Cristiano could only dream of. I understand if people think Cristiano had a better season than R9 but it is definitely not clear as day or anything like that.
And no, I'm not really into romanticism or nostalgia or anything like that. If you'd been following threads concerning past eras you'd recognized that I am fairly criticial of "the good old times" and many of it's players and especially the tactical aspects of the game. But Ronaldo did unprecedented things with a ball at his feet, simple as that.

On the contrary, I believe your love for Ronaldo is fueled by the Hollywood narrative that constitute all the media coverage of him. A while ago and in another thread, a poster said that he's got the impression that Ronaldo fans are not really interested in the sport but in the person and the story telling and I think that there is much truth in that. You are in love with the Americanized story of the less talented but hard working superstar that in Rocky Balboa fashion fought his way back to the top and overcame a seemingly unbeatable opponent playing for the best side in history. That's why CR7 fans tend to argue either with stuff that's remotely connected to football at best, like character, working attitude, clutch and all these intangibles or superficial analyses of goal records that are being looked at without context. But life has no Hollywood plot. When you are actually discussing the footballer Cristiano Ronaldo it becomes clear that abilitywise he isn't in the same bracket Ronaldo Lima was. I'm not even sure Messi, who's also an insanely talented footballer, is in the same bracket as the Brazilian talentwise. That's only taking into account peak performance of course.

Ah, and by the way: It's not true that CR7, Messi and Pele are the only players in history that shined with such consistency. There are many players with comparable or even better goal records which coincidently also happened to be better playmakers of which some even were Real Madrid players, like di Stefano or Puskas. But then there are also Gerd Müller, Zico, Eusebio, Romario and many more. But they are usually overlooked because those stories don't fit in with the narrative that we're currently seeing the two best players in history (and that they are each other's equals..). Recency bias at it's finest.

 

[RedRonaldo]

Do you remember the surrounding story of that 98' final? There was a lot more to it than just a bad game from Brazil and Ronaldo. I also don't really see how France dominated the football world for years when Brazil won the next WC in 2002 (with Ronaldo being top scorer with 8 goals) while France finished last in their group with 1 point. Sure they won the EC in 2000 but Brazil won the CA in 1999 as well.

Yeh there were lots of story or rumours before the final kick-off, that he was not in right condition before the match, but he get to play anyway. Brazil winning the next WC, is more about collective team effort, if you have watched it, Brazil was all-star team back then, with Ronaldinho, Rivaldo, Carlos, Cafu, all of them were best player in the world during that era, Denilson, the world most expensive player at that time, could only sit on the bench. Ronaldo did score alot in the tournament, but his part is more like Klose for Germany, his 1998 performances was clearly way better.

 

[Rito]

It has again boiled down to preferences and biases. Usual suspects are writing paragraph after paragraph, bringing in all sorts of intangibles which suit their agenda. The cold, hard fact is that CR7 has achieved things that R9 can only dream of. 5 Ucls, 5 Bdors, approx 600 goals, domination in 3 top leagues do not lie. R9 surpasses Cr7 only with the NT. But that doesn't supersede the huge gulf in achievements in club careers

 

[_00_deathscar]

C.Ronaldo finished 2nd in the Ballon D'or at 22 (many would say he should have won) and won it a year later when he was 23. He probably wasn't as good as R9 was at the same age but he was in the discussion for best player in the world from when he was 21 or thereabouts. He finished 10th in the Ballon D'or in 2006 and by the time that ranking was made he was already in the top 5 players in Europe or maybe even the best.

Maybe I didn't state it clearly - Ronaldo was being talked about as the best player EVER in his late teens/early 20s. Cristiano Ronaldo was nowhere anywhere near that level, good a player as he was (Euro 2004, and the obvious 2006-2009 period where I think he was definitely better than he has been for Madrid/Juventus in the last few seasons).

 

[_00_deathscar]

Yeh there were lots of story or rumours before the final kick-off, that he was not in right condition before the match, but he get to play anyway. Brazil winning the next WC, is more about collective team effort, if you have watched it, Brazil was all-star team back then, with Ronaldinho, Rivaldo, Carlos, Cafu, all of them were best player in the world during that era, Denilson, the world most expensive player at that time, could only sit on the bench. Ronaldo did score alot in the tournament, but his part is more like Klose for Germany, his 1998 performances was clearly way better.

Are you confusing eras...?

 

[Schneckerl]

On the contrary, I believe your love for Ronaldo is fueled by the Hollywood narrative that constitute all the media coverage of him. A while ago and in another thread, a poster said that he's got the impression that Ronaldo fans are not really interested in the sport but in the person and the story telling and I think that there is much truth in that. You are in love with the Americanized story of the less talented but hard working superstar that in Rocky Balboa fashion fought his way back to the top and overcame a seemingly unbeatable opponent playing for the best side in history. That's why CR7 fans tend to argue either with stuff that's remotely connected to football at best, like character, working attitude, clutch and all these intangibles or superficial analyses of goal records that are being looked at without context. But life has no Hollywood plot. When you are actually discussing the footballer Cristiano Ronaldo it becomes clear that abilitywise he isn't in the same bracket Ronaldo Lima was. I'm not even sure Messi, who's also an insanely talented footballer, is in the same bracket as the Brazilian talentwise. That's only taking into account peak performance of course.

Interesting idea, there might be truth in it.

The 'clutch' storyline is really boosted by recency bias from the past 3 years. Over his whole career his performances in big games are about as good/bad as you'd expect considering how he plays usually.

 

[RedRonaldo]

Are you confusing eras...?

No. Re-read what I wrote, I said France went on dominate for years, France was clearly the best team in the world for a period of 3-4 years at least from 98-01, winning WC in 98, Euro in 2000, Confederations Cup in 2001 (not as major trophy, but still they beat everyone there, including Brazil). 4 years is considered a long period in football for national team, for example. Last time Spain dominate in around 2010s, it last around 4-5 years, winning 1 WC and 2 Euro.

 

[Peyroteo]

Or their eyes.

Cristiano, and Messi to some extent, are stat kings aided by the shift in recent years to teams tailoring their styles towards a smaller number of players scoring a higher number of goals than ever before. If they had played in a different era their numbers wouldn't be as high as you could have a more reasoned debate over them. It doesn't mean they're not as great, just that stats from different eras are not comparable, but you can't have that discussion because you have kids hero worshipping them and throwing their toys out of the pram when anyone dares question them, as in this thread.

Messi and Ronaldo only score a lot due to the era of football they’re playing in despite scoring more than their peers in a way it’s never been seen before.

If you actually believe teams are tailoring their styles in order to get a specific player scoring a lot of goals then I don’t know what to tell you. There isn’t one single manager that thinks that way, the percentage of goals the top scorer scores out of all the team’s goals is still virtually the same on average....

There is always another excuse as to why they score so much.

Kids worshipping the great players of their time is natural, what isn’t natural is the draft crowd in here looking at everything through nostalgia and romanticism goggles without giving a shit about how good the players actually are.

 

[Peyroteo]

That's maybe because every single player you mentioned has something speaking for him. It is not a completely irrational decision to take those players at their respective peaks ahead of Cristiano.

Football after all is a sport that is hard to operationalize. There is no profound statistical model to translate the impact of a player in a concrete score or something like that. So people understand the game differently and asign certain aspects of a player's skills different importances and of course that's where biases and preferences mix with rational evaluations. You exemplarily rate the impact of off the ball movement and runs far higher than I do but I can't prove you wrong just like you can't do it to me. My issue simply is that I don't think you rate Cristiano the way you do because of how you view the game but you view the game how you do because you want to rate Ronaldo.

Anyway, that's a different topic. What I actually wanted to say is that it is not solely down to romanticism or a Cristiano's at times dislikeable character that people choose the way they do. There's no conspiracy against Cristiano at work, people simply don't rate him the way you do. It is highly arrogant that you always play their opinions down to romanticism, a bias for aesthetics or a prejudice against CR7.

I think in the end it comes down to the question what is more important for a footballer, doing the easy things consistently right or doing things that nobody else could do (and actually putting those things to work efficiently)? In general, it seems like the majority of football fans intuitively prefer the latter because otherwise guys like Iniesta would be held in higher regard than somebody like Zidane or Ronaldinho. I believe this to be the actual issue for you because that's where it "goes wrong" for Cristiano in people's perception compared to yours.

Of course... it is people’s intuition that makes them believe it more than any bias against him.

The problem is that the intuition comes from a lack of understanding about the sport that makes them ignore more than half of the stuff that makes him the player he is.

For lots of people here regardless of him retiring today or continuing at the same level until he’s 38 leading Juve to plenty of success they’ll end up rating him exactly the same way. Should I not point out just how utterly stupid that is because ‘I’m biased’ and ‘everyone has an opinion’?

Wait 10-20 years and people will use the same logic towards him that they use to judge the legacies of other great players, you’ll see just how different things will be in the years after he retires. Meanwhile, there’s literally nothing he can do to change the minds of any of these people other than start giving football classes.

 

[Hala Madrid]

It really isn't. R9 did things Cristiano could only dream of. I understand if people think Cristiano had a better season than R9 but it is definitely not clear as day or anything like that.
And no, I'm not really into romanticism or nostalgia or anything like that. If you'd been following threads concerning past eras you'd recognized that I am fairly criticial of "the good old times" and many of it's players and especially the tactical aspects of the game. But Ronaldo did unprecedented things with a ball at his feet, simple as that.

On the contrary, I believe your love for Ronaldo is fueled by the Hollywood narrative that constitute all the media coverage of him. A while ago and in another thread, a poster said that he's got the impression that Ronaldo fans are not really interested in the sport but in the person and the story telling and I think that there is much truth in that. You are in love with the Americanized story of the less talented but hard working superstar that in Rocky Balboa fashion fought his way back to the top and overcame a seemingly unbeatable opponent playing for the best side in history. That's why CR7 fans tend to argue either with stuff that's remotely connected to football at best, like character, working attitude, clutch and all these intangibles or superficial analyses of goal records that are being looked at without context. But life has no Hollywood plot. When you are actually discussing the footballer Cristiano Ronaldo it becomes clear that abilitywise he isn't in the same bracket Ronaldo Lima was. I'm not even sure Messi, who's also an insanely talented footballer, is in the same bracket as the Brazilian talentwise. That's only taking into account peak performance of course.

Ah, and by the way: It's not true that CR7, Messi and Pele are the only players in history that shined with such consistency. There are many players with comparable or even better goal records which coincidently also happened to be better playmakers of which some even were Real Madrid players, like di Stefano or Puskas. But then there are also Gerd Müller, Zico, Eusebio, Romario and many more. But they are usually overlooked because those stories don't fit in with the narrative that we're currently seeing the two best players in history (and that they are each other's equals..). Recency bias at it's finest.

This notion is completely wrong and is totally expected from someone like you who romanticizes to the extent of thinking you're rational.
Cristiano has always been clutch from his younger years till now...more than any player ever.
And the mental strength, will,clutch, etc thing you dismiss is just as pointless as the useless through-ball stats and key passes, there's no difference if a player gives a through ball and another gives a sideways pass while both successfully assisting a goal.
R9 doesn't come close to R7 in his peak, his peak was like a flash in the huge pan of Cristiano's career; and if you're talking about the worthless 'tingling feeling and eye thingy', R9 wasn't as enjoyable to watch as a young CR7; the players I enjoyed most while watching the game were Ronaldinho, young CR7, Okocha and Neymar; I personally didn't/don't fancy dribblers like messi, R9, hazard, etc, I prefer the tricksters, the once that perform like they came to entertain a crowd.
Your notions are wrong and completely useless, it's not a rational thinking at all

 

[Bokito]

He scored 59 goals in 99 games for Inter. I mean, that is good, sure, but you make it sound like he was some sort of demigod, an unstoppable force who never even had a bad game. Cristiano Ronaldo has a far better goals per game ratio than that in the effing Champions League - and that includes his entire career. If you only look at the Madrid years, he has 105 goals in 101 games in Europe. That is insane.

We do not appreciate how absolutely out of this world both he and Messi have been this past decade. We're unlikely to ever see such dominance ever again. Seriously, they are underrated compared to the older greats who have nostalgia in their favour.

By that logic, Vardy’s a better striker than Van Basten. He became top scorer for AC Milan in 1990 with just 19 goals - and a total of 90 goals for Milan in 147 games. Different times. The difference between the big clubs and the rest has increased dramatically. Just look at all the high scores in LaLiga in recent years. 25 years ago, the differences just weren’t so big, with clubs like Valencia, Sevilla, Deportivo challenging for titles.

 

[Zehner]

Of course... it is people’s intuition that makes them believe it more than any bias against him.

The problem is that the intuition comes from a lack of understanding about the sport that makes them ignore more than half of the stuff that makes him the player he is.

For lots of people here regardless of him retiring today or continuing at the same level until he’s 38 leading Juve to plenty of success they’ll end up rating him exactly the same way. Should I not point out just how utterly stupid that is because ‘I’m biased’ and ‘everyone has an opinion’?

Wait 10-20 years and people will use the same logic towards him that they use to judge the legacies of other great players, you’ll see just how different things will be in the years after he retires. Meanwhile, there’s literally nothing he can do to change the minds of any of these people other than start giving football classes.

Have a feeling you'll be disappointed come that time.

And why should they change their opinion of him? I mean, it is not exactly as if there was something new to see. People will give him slightly more credit for his insane longevity than they already do. I think for the player every additional year of worldclass performances is incredibly difficult to pull off at that age but in the general perception it won't change much if he maintained this quality for 10, 13 or 15 years. In the end, longevity is just longevity. It doesn't make him a better player it "only" makes him a more consistent player.

This notion is completely wrong and is totally expected from someone like you who romanticizes to the extent of thinking you're rational.
Cristiano has always been clutch from his younger years till now...more than any player ever.
And the mental strength, will,clutch, etc thing you dismiss is just as pointless as the useless through-ball stats and key passes, there's no difference if a player gives a through ball and another gives a sideways pass while both successfully assisting a goal.
R9 doesn't come close to R7 in his peak, his peak was like a flash in the huge pan of Cristiano's career; and if you're talking about the worthless 'tingling feeling and eye thingy', R9 wasn't as enjoyable to watch as a young CR7; the players I enjoyed most while watching the game were Ronaldinho, young CR7, Okocha and Neymar; I personally didn't/don't fancy dribblers like messi, R9, hazard, etc, I prefer the tricksters, the once that perform like they came to entertain a crowd.
Your notions are wrong and completely useless, it's not a rational thinking at all

R9 was the prototype of a trickster. The fact that you think he was a dribbler like Messi shows that you haven't even watched the guy play in compilations, let alone complete games. Watch the two videos below and you'll love him, trust me. He was the role model of tricksters like Ronaldinho, Neymar and Robinho.




Where am I romanticizing? I've given you profound arguments. I doubt you'll deny that R9 was faster, a better dribbler and a better passer than Cristiano. Not even Peyroteo or Cal? deny that he was more talented. You just hide behind this romanticism argument because it allows you to easily neglect arguments that would make you question an opinion you don't even want to change.

The bolded is my favourite part of your post. So the more difficult through ball that creates a transitional moment is worth the same as a easy sideway pass because both lead to an assist? So what makes a pass important is not the impact of it on the play but the fact that it was the last pass before a goal? And the purpose of a pass is not to outplay defenders but to gain an assist? I mean, let's just assume you assisted me for a goal. Now if I hadn't shot on goal but gave a sideway pass to another player who then had scored, does that make your pass worse? This is an absolutely ridiculous argument.

No wonder that you are so keen of "being clutch" and stuff like that. You have no idea how football works so you talk about easy to understand topics and avoid discussing stuff that actually matters. Ah and just fo rthe record, I don't give two shits about "being clutch". This term is so incredibly intangible it hurts.

 

[JDoe]

There is only one player that I have seen that has performed on the same level as peak R9 and that was Messi. I value peak performance over longevity, that's why it's gonna be R9 for me every time. For longevity, it's not even a contest, CR7 has been playing on a world class level for much longer than R9. But so has quite a few other players.

 

[Zehner]

By the way, since here has been talked that much about the goal records of both players. During their whole careers, Cristiano has scored a goal every 108 minutes and Ronaldo Nazario every 119 minutes. However, if you only count until things went to shit for Ronaldo at Madrid (2005/06) then he's at 112 minutes per goal. If you only consider his peak until his first injury in 99, he is at 101 minutes per goal which is a fairly impressive stat. If you now only consider Cristiano from the 2006/07 season onwards (which I'd say is the season he found his scoring boots) he is at 95 minutes per goal. That's a difference of 6 minutes to pre-injury R9 - and this is without considering the inflation of goals scored by league top teams during Ronaldo's era, especially compared to the Serie A. From a quick glance it looks like Barca and Real during Cristiano's time in spain usualy scored 50-100% more goals than Serie A top teams back then and at least 10-20% more goals than La Liga top teams in the 90s.

 

[Peyroteo]

Jardel scored 7 goals in one half of football once, that’s the highest peak I’ve seen someone have therefore he’s the best player ever.

Who cares that he got outperformed for 99.9% of his 20 year career by plenty of different players if no one got a peak as high as his?

 

[Peyroteo]

By the way, since here has been talked that much about the goal records of both players. During their whole careers, Cristiano has scored a goal every 108 minutes and Ronaldo Nazario every 119 minutes. However, if you only count until things went to shit for Ronaldo at Madrid (2005/06) then he's at 112 minutes per goal. If you only consider his peak until his first injury in 99, he is at 101 minutes per goal which is a fairly impressive stat. If you now only consider Cristiano from the 2006/07 season onwards (which I'd say is the season he found his scoring boots) he is at 95 minutes per goal. That's a difference of 6 minutes to pre-injury R9 - and this is without considering the inflation of goals scored by league top teams during Ronaldo's era, especially compared to the Serie A. From a quick glance it looks like Barca and Real during Cristiano's time in spain usualy scored 50-100% more goals than Serie A top teams back then and at least 10-20% more goals than La Liga top teams in the 90s.

You know you’ve just compared a 5 season period with a 13 season period and concluded one averaged significantly more goals for 700 games than the other for 200...

Lies, damned lies and statistics.

 

[JDoe]

Jardel scored 7 goals in one half of football once, that’s the highest peak I’ve seen someone have therefore he’s the best player ever.

Who cares that he got outperformed for 99.9% of his 20 year career by plenty of different players if no one got a peak as high as his?

Is that supposed to be funny?

 

[Peyroteo]

Have a feeling you'll be disappointed come that time.

And why should they change their opinion of him? I mean, it is not exactly as if there was something new to see. People will give him slightly more credit for his insane longevity than they already do. I think for the player every additional year of worldclass performances is incredibly difficult to pull off at that age but in the general perception it won't change much if he maintained this quality for 10, 13 or 15 years. In the end, longevity is just longevity. It doesn't make him a better player it "only" makes him a more consistent player.




R9 was the prototype of a trickster. The fact that you think he was a dribbler like Messi shows that you haven't even watched the guy play in compilations, let alone complete games. Watch the two videos below and you'll love him, trust me. He was the role model of tricksters like Ronaldinho, Neymar and Robinho.




Where am I romanticizing? I've given you profound arguments. I doubt you'll deny that R9 was faster, a better dribbler and a better passer than Cristiano. Not even Peyroteo or Cal? deny that he was more talented. You just hide behind this romanticism argument because it allows you to easily neglect arguments that would make you question an opinion you don't even want to change.

The bolded is my favourite part of your post. So the more difficult through ball that creates a transitional moment is worth the same as a easy sideway pass because both lead to an assist? So what makes a pass important is not the impact of it on the play but the fact that it was the last pass before a goal? And the purpose of a pass is not to outplay defenders but to gain an assist? I mean, let's just assume you assisted me for a goal. Now if I hadn't shot on goal but gave a sideway pass to another player who then had scored, does that make your pass worse? This is an absolutely ridiculous argument.

No wonder that you are so keen of "being clutch" and stuff like that. You have no idea how football works so you talk about easy to understand topics and avoid discussing stuff that actually matters. Ah and just fo rthe record, I don't give two shits about "being clutch". This term is so incredibly intangible it hurts.

R9 was better on the ball than Cristiano for a very short time and not by a big difference in the slightest. He wasn’t a better passer or creator at all, not comparing to this version of Cristiano only but throughout their entire careers Cristiano is the one who was te better chance creator without a shadow of a doubt, R9 wasn’t a better passer either.

Those videos are nothing I’ve never seen Cristiano do for years ffs, is that supposed to look impressive. R9 at his prime couldn’t do half the things Cristiano at his prime could do, nevermind for the 95% of the rest of his career that apparently didn’t happen.











Please do actually watch these and don’t skip over them so you actually remember what Cristiano Ronaldo used to be as a football player. You and way too many others seem to have forgotten.

The fact that your view of football sees it in a way that it’s pretty much irrelevant to the way you rate Cristiano Ronaldo if he spends the next four years growing a beer belly and having orgies or if he spends it being the main man on a dominant Juve team that wins everything says it all as to how absolute shit that logic is. You’d rate him higher if he had retired in 2014... somehow having been extremely successful in adapting to his lost athleticism means he got people rating him lower than if he had retired then and there.

 

[Zehner]

You know you’ve just compared a 5 season period with a 13 season period and concluded one averaged significantly more goals for 700 games than the other for 200...

Lies, damned lies and statistics.

Yeah, that's maybe because we are talking about peak R9 who only shone for maybe 4-5 years. And you know, I also showed a stat considering a 11 year period for the Brazilian in which he was at 108 minutes per goal which is still highly impressive considering the goal inflation Cristiano profited from.

"Lies". You are funny.

 

[Zehner]

R9 was better on the ball than Cristiano for a very short time and not by a big difference in the slightest. He wasn’t a better passer or creator at all, not comparing to this version of Cristiano only but throughout their entire careers Cristiano is the one who was te better chance creator without a shadow of a doubt, R9 wasn’t a better passer either.

Those videos are nothing I’ve never seen Cristiano do for years ffs, is that supposed to look impressive. R9 at his prime couldn’t do half the things Cristiano at his prime could do, nevermind for the 95% of the rest of his career that apparently didn’t happen.

The fact that your view of football sees it in a way that it’s pretty much irrelevant to your opinion of Cristiano Ronaldo if he spends the next four years growing a beer belly and having orgies or if he spends it being the main man on a dominant Juve team that wins everything says it all as to how absolute shit that logic is.

You’d rate him higher if he had retired in 2014.

Why do you keep mentioning that R9 didn't do that kind of stuff outside of his peak when nobody in here suggests that he can compete with CR7 in terms of longevity ffs?

R9 at his prime couldn't do half the things Cristiano at his prime could? Wow. There's no footballer in the history of the game you could make that point for. These videos were posted to show that he is a trickster. If you'd have even 50% of the knowledge about football you pretend to possess you'd know that it is easy to post far more impressive stuff than that.

God do I hate it when you take things out of context in order to defend your darling.

And yes, it is irrelevant to my opinion of Cristiano's peak if he plays another three years or reitres now. Anything else would be dumb tbh.


And no, I don't rate assists on how beautiful they are. That's simply a point you keep making because it is easy to neglect but that doesn't make this allegation any more true. But of course a assist is worth more if it was more difficult to make as long as there was no other option available. When a player dribbles four guys and to set up a team mate or when a CM takes out 4-5 defenders with a single pass of course this is more valuable than a simple sideway pass in front of the goal. Incredible that I have to explain this kind of stuff.

 

[Peyroteo]

Yeah, that's maybe because we are talking about peak R9 who only shone for maybe 4-5 years. And you know, I also showed a stat considering a 11 year period for the Brazilian in which he was at 108 minutes per goal which is still highly impressive considering the goal inflation Cristiano profited from.

"Lies". You are funny.

You compared an 11 year span consisting of 500 games with a 16 year one consisting of 950 and a 5 year span consisting of 200 games with a 13 year span consisting of 700 games.

And the one who played all that more still had more goals per game... then you proceeded to pretend the stats proved there isn’t an insanely huge difference even comparing to their peers in their respective generations.

I mean... what the feck?

That’s as terrible use of statistics as it’s possible to do and it shows exactly how you can turn them to say exactly what you want.

 

[Siorac]

By that logic, Vardy’s a better striker than Van Basten. He became top scorer for AC Milan in 1990 with just 19 goals - and a total of 90 goals for Milan in 147 games. Different times. The difference between the big clubs and the rest has increased dramatically. Just look at all the high scores in LaLiga in recent years. 25 years ago, the differences just weren’t so big, with clubs like Valencia, Sevilla, Deportivo challenging for titles.

Vardy has a significantly worse scoring record than Van Basten so I don't quite understand why you brought him up.

 

[Zehner]

You compared an 11 year span consisting of 500 games with a 16 year one consisting of 950 and a 5 year span consisting of 200 games with a 13 year span consisting of 700 games.

And the one who played all that more still had more goals per game... then you proceeded to pretend the stats proved there isn’t an insanely huge difference even comparing to their peers in their respective generations.

I mean... what the feck?

That’s as terrible use of statistics as it’s possible to do and it shows exactly how you can turn them to say exactly what you want.

Yeah and it was in reference to a poster who said that "Cristiano is one of the few players who had no peak" which is why I took the complete period after he became absolute worldclass. How about you take the time to actually consider the context of a post?

It is not a terrible use of statistics whatsoever. You are simply offended because it delivers some context to the incredible goal records of Messi and Cristiano. R9 in his prime scored in an at least comparable frequence as your buddy and he did so when there were far less goals scored by top teams in the leagues he played. Even if you take that out of the equation (which indeed would be a terrible use of statistics) then Cristiano is by no means in a different sphere or anything like you wanted to suggests.

 

[Peyroteo]

Why do you keep mentioning that R9 didn't do that kind of stuff outside of his peak when nobody in here suggests that he can compete with CR7 in terms of longevity ffs?

R9 at his prime couldn't do half the things Cristiano at his prime could? Wow. There's no footballer in the history of the game you could make that point for. These videos were posted to show that he is a trickster. If you'd have even 50% of the knowledge about football you pretend to possess you'd know that it is easy to post far more impressive stuff than that.

God do I hate it when you take things out of context in order to defend your darling.

And yes, it is irrelevant to my opinion of Cristiano's peak if he plays another three years or reitres now. Anything else would be dumb tbh.


And no, I don't rate assists on how beautiful they are. That's simply a point you keep making because it is easy to neglect but that doesn't make this allegation any more true. But of course a assist is worth more if it was more difficult to make as long as there was no other option available. When a player dribbles four guys and to set up a team mate or when a CM takes out 4-5 defenders with a single pass of course this is more valuable than a simple sideway pass in front of the goal. Incredible that I have to explain this kind of stuff.

Regarding your first question, because if R9’s peak lasted 2 or 3 seasons, Cristiano’s lasted 13. You can’t just say R9 had a peak for 2 years so I’ll compare it with Cristiano’s best 2 years... why not do it the other way around then????

That’s a rhetorical question, I know you couldn’t give less of a shit as to why your romanticized and completely deluded view of the sport is wrong... you care about justifying it with complete shit, as you done in your stats post above.

Regarding your last point, what a load of shite. A cross does the same but that won’t get into your examples, it’s either dribbling past 3 players and passing to a goal which happens once every 100000 goals or a through ball goals after that are extremely rare and suited to the particular way Barcelona play (hence your view of the sport), physical advantages, intelligent movement, smart passing... that’s how most goals are created in this sport. Not through fecking dribbling or 30 meters through balls.

And I didn’t take anything out of context... God I hate it when you complete Messi fanboys are so far up his ass you don’t have enough light to actually read.

 

[Prometheus]

R9 at his prime couldn’t do half the things Cristiano at his prime could do, nevermind for the 95% of the rest of his career that apparently didn’t happen.

Wow! That's quite simply one of the most spectacularly wrong things I've read on this forum!

 

[Peyroteo]

Yeah and it was in reference to a poster who said that "Cristiano is one of the few players who had no peak" which is why I took the complete period after he became absolute worldclass. How about you take the time to actually consider the context of a post?

It is not a terrible use of statistics whatsoever. You are simply offended because it delivers some context to the incredible goal records of Messi and Cristiano. R9 in his prime scored in an at least comparable frequence as your buddy and he did so when there were far less goals scored by top teams in the leagues he played. Even if you take that out of the equation (which indeed would be a terrible use of statistics) then Cristiano is by no means in a different sphere or anything like you wanted to suggests.

Jesus bloody Christ... have you ever actually studied statistics once in your life???

Your use of statistics there is so incredibly bad it’s unreal. Comparing an average of goals per game through completely different samples of their career will obviously bring very meaningless results for fecks sake.

At least admit it for once.

Then I’m biased for pointing out how incredibly stupid you were

Classic

 

[Peyroteo]

Wow! That's quite simply one of the most spectacularly wrong things I've read on this forum!

I was making the opposite statement to what he’d made to show how preposterous it was.

Load of shit both ways. R9 wasn’t as fast over long distances, wasn’t a third of the player Cristiano was in the air, was a worse crosser, worse left foot, etc. R9 was better at other things yet there’s people seriously claiming R9 was better because he picked up the ball at the halfway line and scored which Cristiano couldn’t do despite Cristiano having done that more often...

It’s such bullshit and I can guarantee you 100% Zehner never watched R9 consistently in his prime and neither did 99% of the people here saying it was a better peak. They watched the YouTube videos instead..

 

[Bokito]

Vardy has a significantly worse scoring record than Van Basten so I don't quite understand why you brought him up.

Because it was simply a player that scored more last season than Van Basten in one of his most successful seasons - trying to make the point that statistics are pointless when comparing different eras. In R9’s first season at Inter, in which he was awarded the player of the year award, the club totalled at 62 goals - Juve won with 67 goals. Last year in La Liga? Real had 94 (and Barca won with 99 goals). So plainly comparing a goal per match ratio, or total goals per season, makes no sense to establish which player is better (that’s where the Vardy argument came into play). For me personally, R9 is the better player. It could be the nostalgia of seeing him dominating the pitch live in the stadium when he was 19 speaking, though...

 

[Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber]

R9s career was wrecked by injury. Its not a remotely fair comparison