The only logical answer --> Probably.
Would Ronaldo have been so adored if he played football in this current era
- Thread starter Sir Erik ten Hag
- Start date
Rooney isn't Suarez level, Suarez had an all time great season in his last season for Liverpool, Rooney hasn't had a comparable season on that level in his career, only Ronaldo Henry Salah and now Haaland have in PL history.
Its his Barca time that put him on another level though.
He has no assists in the KO rounds either. What's your list of excuses for that? Seeing as he wasn't primarily a goalscorer early on and all that....
He just hasn't been that good in international tournaments, especially the World Cup. Anyone who says otherwise is lying to themselves.
He's definitely no where near GOAT status or the top 10, but many casuals think he's number one or close to it.
The fights he won were mostly against bums, and the fights against actual top fighters he lost against, this being Lewis and Holyfield. Losing to Douglas tainted his legacy as well.
The only decent fighters Tyson beat were a 38 year old over the hill Larry Holmes and a decent but not top fighter in Michael Spinks.
My 7 year old wants his hair cut like him
Bruv, nostalgia is hitting them early.
Hell yeah, he would.
How can you admit that CR7’s international record isn’t one to be proud of and say that it is superior to R9’s - a player who’s international career is the envy of pretty much everyone who isn’t Pele.
You make Portugal out to be some sort of minnows. It makes you wonder how they managed to win the final of the only major trophy in CR7’s international career without him. Against France. It’s almost as if Portugal have produced a large number of top quality players.
Two players were the key threat in their respective national teams.
Player A
European Championship
Player B
2 x Copa Americas
2 x World Cups
Be honest, if Player A wasn’t CR7, would you be even attempting to make the argument that he had a more impressive international career?
Anyway, in answer to the OP, he would definitely be loved. He made football a joy to watch.
What's ironic?
R9 would always be adored because he played with a smile on his face, he was like a kid playing in the park with his mates full of tricks, flicks, dribbling and running at people where sometimes it came off and other times it didn`t but it was the joy of playing football that mattered. A whirlwind on the field where you never knew what he would do next and it was magic to watch.
To be fair if the UEFA was not the dumbest organization on earth Portugal doesn't go beyond the group stage and Lloris is a traitor!
When you consider Mbappe has a similar resume i.e. no UCL, but world cup star and yet has only played in farmers league and is rated as arguably the hottest prospect in football, the more talented R9 should be pretty safe IMO.
What's exactly your critique? Is it about Cristiano not assisting the only 2 KO goal they scored since 1966 (Up until recent World Cup)? That's just clutching at straws.
In 2018 Pepe goal came after a short corner cross, Obviously Ronaldo was inside the box.
In 2006 Maniche scored shortly after Ronaldo got butchered during the first 10 Minutes, He tried to get it on and required medical care twice before he got subbed.
youtube.com/watch?v=NkxUC19u5pQ
No way he would even come to PSV and our little Eredivisie. He would be like Endrick and signed up as a 16 year old by Real Madrid.
I do agree that r9s international career was better, but including a world cup where he played 0 minutes to prove that seems slightly disingenuous, unless you think sitting on the bench all that time was really impressive and contributed to Brazil winning
Actually maybe this is just the stats brigade in action again, who don't understand that playing 0 minutes in the 90s was a huge achievement and not the same as playing 0 minutes today, and that r9 was so unplayable that he influenced the tournament without playing, but the stats brigade wouldn't appreciate that, you needed to watch the way he sat on the bench to truly get it
Fair play. Though, even making it into the Brazil squad at that age is impressive. But let’s remove that medal just for giggles. That’s just the one World Cup for him, then.
While I still agree it's definitely better, I'd imagine cristiano would have won the WC in 2002 with that Brazil team, obviously it didn't happen and qualifiers and friendlies aren't really that important no matter how many he scored, so r9 did have the better international career, but I don't really weight internationals that highly, I mean if Messi hadn't won that WC at the age of 35 it shouldn't diminish the rest of his career. And mbappe achieving the same as r9, a winners medal and a runner up doesn't really put him that high in the ranking either he needs to do more at club level.
A lot of people are talking about if r9 came in today he'd immediately go to a super team and win everything, but so far city or psg haven't won a champions league and mbappe who's spent most of his career at one of these super clubs and is now older than when r9 had his injury problems hasn't won everything in sight and isn't rated as highly as other players. Fair enough maybe he's less talented than r9 but it's not a massive gap and a teenager going for nearly 200m is the same kind of hype that r9 had
The funny thing is, the argument was all about stats when comparing club records. But as soon as the the discussion switched to international careers, suddenly it’s all about the context behind the numbers as opposed to the numbers themselves. Curious.
If you love CR7, that’s cool. He one of the greatest players of all time. There are so many of his achievements to point to, why try to invent some more?
I remember seeing Ronaldo and Zidane play at the Bernabeu. Both were simply amazing but Ronaldo was on another level, always in space. He's one of the true icons of the game. An incredible footballer.
CR7 may well have won the World Cup with Brazil. But he didn’t. In fact, his end product in the business end of the World Cup is non-existent. His international career isn’t as impressive as R9’s by pretty much any significant metric.
I was responding to CrockedRain, anyway. You don’t weight international football that highly, which is fair enough.
Can you also imagine if R9 played at his peak in a team that had Marcelo, Ramos, Pepe, Casemiro, Kroos, Modric and Benzema coached by Zidane or Ancelotti, would R9 win CLs and League titles? Would he score a ton of goals?
Or if he was coached by Pep and played with Xavi, Ineista, Villa, Bousquet, Abdial, Alves, Alba, Poyul, Henry etc..
Trophies are won by teams, and I am not and will never discount Messi or CR7 huge influences in their teams' successes during their long peak years but it really comes down to teams when it's about winning trophies, Chelsea won CL in 2012 beating Beyern, who qualified to CL final next season and won it 2013, during those 2 years Messi and Ronaldo still dominated individually but couldn't help their teams' win CLs, heck even Atletico won La Liga in 2014 where Messi and Ronaldo scored 41 and 51 respectively, my point is that winning trophies is always about teams overall ability, having the best player in the world helps but it's not always enough.
Precisely
Maybe he would, though lewandowski has come close to matching messi's tallies, and benzema hasn't come close to matching Ronaldo's despite them adding vinicius. The teams only scored over 100 goals because Messi and Ronaldo were there, real managed 63 in the league the season Ronaldo left, and are on 69 this year, and it's not as if they've stopped stockpiling talent, they just can't replace peak crisitiano, same way Barca can't replace peak Messi.
Yes, teams win trophies, but Barca won the league the season after Ronaldo left, real had won 2 in 3 champions leagues before he joined, he wasn't exactly playing for awful sides. And I'm not even trying to argue he wasn't great, but if you're going to put him even close to those two off of such a short career, you'd expect him to have been top scorer in every league, and won a shitload in a short space of time
My critique is that he's been poor in big international tournaments (especially in comparison to someone like R9). It's a fact that many of his acolytes don't want to acknowledge. This is proven by the fact that even in the tournament that Portugal won, he was not deemed the best player in the competition. That takes some doing.
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But Ronaldo reaching the final in 2004 at his age is not impressive enough for you to mention?
R9 had the better international career for sure. Nothing beats the World Cup and part of his iconic stature was his 2002 world cup run but the other poster saying CR7 isn't near or wasn't that good internationally is a real exaggeration. I'm not going to list out every achievement of CR7 here but objectively he has had an extremely successful international career with a Euro to show for it.
I'd imagine that this thread has been derailed already, but to the OP: yes, he very likely would have, maybe even more.
The fabric of european top football changed drastically from 1995/1996 to 2005/2006. Mainly by A) the expansion of the UCL that allowed big clubs to be there every year; and by B) the Bosman law that eventually paved the way for the formation of superteams holding all the big players, therefore being able to easily collect a handful of titles every season.
Anyway, if the debate goes into stats, Ronaldo can handle it easily as his 2 titles (1 without playing), 1 final and 15 goals in 19 games in the most important tournament of them all thrash most of the past and current competition. Of today's players Mbappé is the only one with a similar record, and coincidentally he is in some ways a modern day Ronaldo.
The fabric of european top football changed drastically from 1995/1996 to 2005/2006. Mainly by A) the expansion of the UCL that allowed big clubs to be there every year; and by B) the Bosman law that eventually paved the way for the formation of superteams holding all the big players, therefore being able to easily collect a handful of titles every season.
Anyway, if the debate goes into stats, Ronaldo can handle it easily as his 2 titles (1 without playing), 1 final and 15 goals in 19 games in the most important tournament of them all thrash most of the past and current competition. Of today's players Mbappé is the only one with a similar record, and coincidentally he is in some ways a modern day Ronaldo.
There is a lot of nostalgia surrounding R9 that is quite remarkable. Some of his fans tend to bring up his early goal-scoring records and compare them to Cristiano, who played in a different position as a pure winger/wide midfielder. However, it's important to note that the two players had different roles on the field.
In terms of overall player quality, CR7 is a clear winner over R9. At their prime, the only debatable aspect may be dribbling, but in every other aspect, CR7 surpasses R9 by a significant margin.
To those who still cling to R9 nostalgia, I would love to hear your arguments about what he was better at.
In terms of overall player quality, CR7 is a clear winner over R9. At their prime, the only debatable aspect may be dribbling, but in every other aspect, CR7 surpasses R9 by a significant margin.
To those who still cling to R9 nostalgia, I would love to hear your arguments about what he was better at.
Again, I am not discounting Messi or CR7 when I say this but they both played in stacked teams that gave them the platform to score shitload of goals and win trophies, we are even witnessing this with Haaland, he scored so far 51 goals in 47 this season alone while in 2 and half years at Dortmund he scored only 67 overall.
R9 never played in a stacked team except with Brazil and even then only managed 2 copa As and 1 WC, with Inter, even if he wasnt injury stricken and was always fit, he wouldn't have been able to consistently win trophies as his team was never a dominant force in Italy or even in Europe during his time with Inter, he only played one season with Barca and they decided to sell him because Inter offered record fee back then, and he didn't play in a dominant Real Madrid, between 03-06, it was a RM team filled with ageing players and coached by mediocre managers until Capello arrived, by then R9 was way past his best and was injury prone.
Again, to be clear, all I am saying is, if R9 wasn't as injury stricken so often, played his peak years with a stacked super teams, he might've easily won shitload of trophies, and scored/assisted ton of goals, it's not guaranteed of course but the chances are he might've done it, simply because his ability as a footballer was phenomenal, what Messi and CR7 achieved with their clubs was first and foremost due their own abilities, plus they played in super strong and dominant teams, R9 had as much if not more in the ability department, he didn't have the other things like being fit/injury free, and playing for a strong team, and we can't know for sure what would R9 have achieved if we changed his circumstances but at very least he had the ability that allows us to argue that he might've done way more, that's all there is to it.
Tbh I see r9 as more like mbappe, signed as an 18 year old for a near world record fee (Ronaldo was a world record fee but mbappe was 180m so not insignificant) reached a final and and a winners medal in 2 separate world cups, playing on one of the strongest squads, and while psg is a decent side, I don't know if I'd say they're super stacked, or if they are it doesn't translate well to on field, but mbappe still scores a lot and has replicated this in the champions league, he's also like r9 in that his pace makes him difficult to defend against. But this hasn't translated to him being considered on the same level as cristiano or Messi, personally I feel a lot of the players over the last decade are underrated because they played at the same time as these 2, if suarez or neymar were starting out now they'd likely be talked about on a similar level as mbappe.
That was my assertion at the start of the thread, that r9 would suffer, as many attackers over the last decade have, if he played alongside those 2. I still stand by that, lewandowski, suarez, neymar etc. Have all suffered because they weren't on the same level as those 2 despite the fact their numbers and general play (particularly the last 2) would have in almost any other era had them as the best attacker in the world.
Probably because you never actually saw R9 at all.
You talk of Suarez, Neymar and Lewandowski but they're nothing like him, they haven't suffered at all either, all three are regarded as top top quality footballers thats all, it makes little difference what generation they're born in because in previous generations they would be a Romario or Baggio who hardly anyone ever talks about when speaking of the top 5-10 footballers of all time.
If there had never been Messi or Ronaldo and suarez came along, tied the goalscoring record in the Premier league, then scored 40 goals in la liga and 57 overall for Barcelona while being incredibly skilful he'd be talked abiut in the same vein as r9, it was the fact that he played at the same time as two other much better players that harmed him
Don't be surprised if your future videos are downvoted.
Sorry bud but relatively speaking to the leagues R9 had to play in - no nicer way of putting it. For what it’s worth I think a lot of European leagues are at a low ebb at the moment in terms of quality.
No, he would be more loved probably.
For one he wouldnt have played in Serie A, which hardly helped his injury record in his time. If his injuries were not as bad as they were then now, he would be the best player in the world. For me ability wise and excitement wise only second to Maradona all time.
Most pleasing to me, he would probably to a degree put a stop to this utter nonsense see all the time regarding stats as he wouldnt score as he wouldnt have the stats of other players but there isnt a striker around liek him and with no disrespect to other players such as Mbappe (quite the opposite in fact) as electrifying and exciting as he is to watch lighting up a crowd, Ronaldo was just on a different level.
This shouldnt even be a thread, there are certain players that are just so good, so exciting to watch importantly, still appear to remain humble (which could exclude some great players) that they would be adored in era and Ronaldo is without doubt one of them. He and Del Piero probably top of the tree in terms of likeability alongside amazing ability in my lifetime.
On a sidenote, how crazy is it Barcelona allowed him to leave after just one season. Even crazier when you look how many amazing players have passed by the Nou Camp for such a short period of time....Neymar, Romario, Maradona, Riquelme, Hagi, Davids
For one he wouldnt have played in Serie A, which hardly helped his injury record in his time. If his injuries were not as bad as they were then now, he would be the best player in the world. For me ability wise and excitement wise only second to Maradona all time.
Most pleasing to me, he would probably to a degree put a stop to this utter nonsense see all the time regarding stats as he wouldnt score as he wouldnt have the stats of other players but there isnt a striker around liek him and with no disrespect to other players such as Mbappe (quite the opposite in fact) as electrifying and exciting as he is to watch lighting up a crowd, Ronaldo was just on a different level.
This shouldnt even be a thread, there are certain players that are just so good, so exciting to watch importantly, still appear to remain humble (which could exclude some great players) that they would be adored in era and Ronaldo is without doubt one of them. He and Del Piero probably top of the tree in terms of likeability alongside amazing ability in my lifetime.
On a sidenote, how crazy is it Barcelona allowed him to leave after just one season. Even crazier when you look how many amazing players have passed by the Nou Camp for such a short period of time....Neymar, Romario, Maradona, Riquelme, Hagi, Davids
Mbappe, Lewa,Suarez and even Neymar do not have the technical ability on the ball as R9, not even close, only few had what R9 had in terms of ability on the ball, CR7 wasn't as skilled on the ball as Messi and R9 but he had that exceptional drive to be the best attacker and became so dominant and scored tons of goals, hence why he is a true great, but if we are talking ability alone, R9 is the one that if he had played in this era in team like Barca circa 09-11 or Madrid 16-18, or current City, he might've been as dominant as the other 2, the key word here is might/maybe, not would/could, since we can't say for sure as no one can either way, but if we are asking what are chances, the answer is yes there is a chance because R9 was that capable in his best day.
Edit: I respect the difference in our opinions/views on the topic and I am just enjoying the discussion here as it's interesting one for me at least.
I don't know I mean I've seen mostly highlights of r9, but suarez seemed a better goalscorer at his peak, better first touch (one of the best I've ever seen) and as skilled a dribbler, but obviously not at the same pace as r9. I really do think suarez particularly is underrated because he played at the same time as Messi and Ronaldo, neymar and Lewandowski maybe not as much, but suarez scored nearly 60 goals in a season, he also scored 31 in the Premier league and it certainly wasn't in a stacked Liverpool side. His ratio in the Premier league I think was the same as r9s at Barca (31 in 33, vs 34 in 37), that Liverpool team certainly wouldn't be described as a super team by any means. Had Messi and Ronaldo not been playing I think he'd be considered the best player since r9 and Zidane (maybe alongside xavi and iniesta but attackers usually are rated higher) but since there were two other players who were clearly better playing in the same league, he isn't considered on that level
Suarez in the same vein as R9, I quit this thread..
R9 played in Serie A cause it was the best league back then.
Now he would be in PL or La Liga, but i think he would choose La Liga considering he is brazilian, i remember Ronaldinho was scouted by United when he was at PSG, and at the last moment Barca scouted him, and he joined them, despite Barca being shit back then.
Yes, absolutely, he'd be the best player in the world and up there with Messi as the GOAT.