Seriously Ronaldo at his peak was great for 2 years but ultimately it was 2 years.
Ifs, buts, could have, would have but didnt.
Effin' Cristiano Ronaldo is ripping the world apart and the leagues apart entering the age of 36 years old.
Not a single year was he shit.
Not a single year except maybe his starting years and even then he was more skilful than he was the statistical type of player he is now.
Fat Ronaldo had off form due to injuries or at one point even physique.
How people value the 'art of dribbling' so highly in football is pretty crazy to me - to me in the modern game and the day we live in the mental health and mindset of a professional footballer is one of the most important thing I can ever recognise if not the most & no one beats Cristiano Ronaldo's.
You need a bit of context mate.
Football in the 90's was never the same as it was when Messi and Cristiano were playing at their peak. There were no super teams and you couldn't see a team defending a CL, let alone winning 3/4 in a row. Real and Barca's bench could easily make it to the latter rounds of CL and be title contenders in their domestic leagues. The amount of the ball both Messi and Cristiano had at their disposal was much, much higher than what Fenomeno can muster, let alone the talent next to him.
I mean with Barca at their heyday you had Messi, Villa, Ibra, Henry, Xavi, Iniesta, Suarez, Neymar - you can't simply put 3 people on Messi and negate the whole side. You could with Ronaldo when he was playing at Inter. Take him out of the game and Inter will fire blanks.
It's not only "art of dribbling". The guy was true phenomenon. I don't think we even saw his true peak, due to the injuries, and yes injuries should be taken into consideration, but it was not "what if". To me if it wasn't for the injuries the GOAT status would have been cemented ages ago.
The "what if", doesn't even make his stature more romantic if you ask me - he was that good at tender age. Even "if" we didn't see his peak, what we saw at young age was already arguably better than what we have seen of even many of the GOAT contenders.
Lately I've been watching some old footage when he was at PSV:
a definition of one man attack. It's like you are at the playground and your attacking plan is based of giving the ball to the best player who should come up with something and win it for you.
If the opposition above doesn't impress then there is this:
17 years old against a stacked defence of Blind, Reiziger, De Boer, Rijkaard, Davids and on top of that VdS on goal. A team that won the CL that year and beat the mighty Milan that were the heavy favorites.
And I see someone mentioned the 98 WC final when the Brazil were favorites. They were favorites because of Ronaldo. That French side was stacked. It had one of the best defence ever for a national team and were scared shitless because of Fenomeno. They had separated sessions dedicated only for how to counter Fenomeno. They didn't really care about Bebeto or Rivaldo at the time.
There really isn't any question marks when it comes to assessing his game before the injuries came kicking in.
16 years old at Cruzeiro( much better league than it is now) - he ripped it apart - averaged goal a game.
17-18 - years old in a much better Dutch league than it is now - he did the same - averaged goal a game.
19-20 years old in Barca - ripped it apart - averaged goal a game.
21-23 years old in the best league in the world - 59 goals in 99 games against some of the best defences the game has seen and in an Inter side that just to put it in perspective in 98/99 he was out injured in the middle of the season - from late January to end of March. Fenomeno missed 8 games during that period - Inter failed to score in 5 of them.
He got back in April till the end of the season - 8 games - 8 goals for Fenomeno and Inter failed to score only in 1.
He was 2 times world player of the year, 1 Ballon D'or (lost another one by 1 vote), on course to become WC with Brazil, changed 4 completely different leagues that he run riot in every single one of them, and all that by the age of 22. By that age Cristiano was becoming one of the best players in the league but wasn't there yet. People really discount how young Fenomeno was when he was reaching those heights. He was teenager and was responsible to run attacks on his own against some of the hardest defensive lines in muddy pitches, kicked out of the game week after week. He didn't get the same protection or the same quality pitches Messi/Cristiano enjoy today, despite being only 9 years younger than Cristiano.
Apple and oranges and all that but at no point Fenomeno played in a super team week after week and he was still putting goal a game numbers on his own.
Put peak Ronaldo in Pep's Barca or Ronaldo's Real and can see him easily scoring 50-60 per year if he's fit, easily.
. Lets be honest. What a load of BS. Unbelievable how every talk about Messi or Cristiano must go in that way. "You don't like this or this on Messi? Oh, you are Cristiano fan then." Grow up. It is childish level of looking at things.