Cristiano Ronaldo is the GREATEST OF ALL TIME. Now Sit down and STFU

Great post Beautiful Football. Ronaldo not being a top 5 all time player isn't a crazy opinion. In fact, I can't remember any legit football expert/historian I've spoken to who thinks that either. He's 6th at the highest, and 10th at the latest imo.

El Gunner wrote:

futbol_bill wrote:I’ve never seen a championship team, players and fans alike have such an angry approach in their celebrations. Messi lashing out at Netherlands saying Argentina not getting respect they deserve, Martínez continuing to mock the rivals they beat, fans taking relative comments about state of competitions vis a vis Europa a South America, as insulting entire continent, fans taking Messi success to totally discount CRonaldo’s career!

I mean just enjoy the tremendous success. I have no idea what’s causing all these angry responses to what should be an entirely monumental achievement.

please

I don't know why he's acting so surprised by teams having a "us vs them" mentality.

Players will find any reason to fire themselves up. MJ used to turn up a notch based on trash talk. The top athletes will find any reason to give them that extra motivation. Emi Martinez said he saved LVG's quote where LVG said Netherlands will beat Argentina on penalties. Emi said he looked at it every few hours before the game to remind himself of that so he could turn up.

It's a common strategy. Messi turned up at LVG because LVG said Argentina defend with 10 players not 11. On first glance these quotes don't seem too aggressive, but in a closed tournament format, players will find any reason to boost their squad spirit, so they end up using it as motivation.

Yeah Martinez is a clown, but this controversy actually spices up football a little bit. Less robots please!

El Gunner wrote:@Cas in that case it was actually LVG who did the trash-talking first... you gotta take it like a man if you dish it out first

Yup all the talk came from LVG first. Although some of his quotes were clearly him talking in jest, but I assume the Argentine players just got the hyperbolized translated version of those quotes. Hence, their anger post match.

Ronaldo is easily the 2nd greatest player of his generation. However, his all-time standing has been damaged by the events of the last few years.

He wins the Euros, 3peat, and ties Messi in Ballon d'ors. He gets butthurt that Florentino won't put him on a Messi-level salary, so he goes to Juve.

At the time it sounded fine. It meant he would've been able to statpad league titles which was something he couldn't do in Spain. He could claim he's won the league title in 3 major leagues. Most importantly, he can create the narrative that he was the missing piece that Juve needed to win the CL. Winning the CL with Juve, and then 3 different teams would've really made him Mr. Champions League and improved his GOAT standing with casuals.

The opposite happened. Quagliarella and Immobile outscored him, and Juve ended up getting knocked out against 3 inferior teams in Ajax, Lyon, and Porto. In his last season they ended up losing the league title and finishing 4th. It was time for Ronaldo to find a new challenge.

He wants to go to the Premier League. Going to Man City made more sense from a stats POV, but he decided to go to United. They were paying a higher salary, and his former teammates and manager were begging him to join United instead. United make two big signings in Sancho and Varane. Once again, Ronaldo would've been the missing piece to help them win their first PL title since 2013. Instead of finishing 1st they finished 6th.

Later that season his former team, Madrid, ended up winning the CL again after going through the hardest route in CL history. Benzema did a bigger carry job than Ronaldo ever has, and the fact that Madrid won again without him despite having a similar spine to when he was there showed he wasn't the difference maker he thought he was.

Then this season comes up, and he ditches preseason because he's trying to get Mendes to engineer him a move outside of United so he can still maintain his top CL scorer record. The only interested teams were the likes of Napoli, Sporting, and Al-Nassr. He ends up staying and stinks it up every time he plays. Mind you, Ronaldo still believes he's the best in the world, so the moment Ten Hag benched him he had to blow a fit each time. Whether it was leaving the stadium early, or refusing to come on. It cumulated with the Piers Morgan interview that led to him getting FIRED.

Now obviously the reason he did the interview was so he could get fired. The World Cup was coming up and the plan was clear. The plan was to show he was still 'that guy' during the WC, and use it as an exhibition to show the big teams he can still play at the highest level. What ended up happening? He dived for a penalty in his first game, gaslit his teammate into thinking Ronaldo scored in the second game, and then assisted Korea's goal in the 3rd game. Santos benches him in the R16, and his sub ends up scoring a hattrick and Portugal win 6-1.

The quarters come up and he gets benched again. He comes on in the 60th minute, but they still end up losing to Morocco. He leaves the field in tears. Messi ends up winning the World Cup 2 weeks later after starring throughout the tournament and scoring twice in the best final ever. Newspapers and pundits start calling him the unanimous GOAT, the Qatar king crowns him with a robe to symbolize he's conquered football, and Messi even steals the Instagram d'or from Ronaldo by having his WC picture be the most liked picture ever.

During that time his shocking World Cup record gets exposed. Exits to the likes of Ghana/US, Uruguay, and Morocco. Zero G/A in the knockout rounds, and one memorable performance in 5 World Cups which was the group game against Spain. Yes, Portugal aren't Brazil, but they should've done better than they did given that Ronaldo was supposedly the most clutch player ever and could supposedly carry teams too. People then dissect his Euro performance and find that Portugal finished 3rd in their group, and he was injured in the final and his biggest international contribution was acting like a coach for the cameras in the Euro 2016 final.

It's been L after L for Ronaldo since 2018. The fact that he isn't a likeable person, and people can see he's a delusional narcissist means he's being shat on more than usual. When you sacrifice your overall game to compete on stats, and the stats are no longer there, then you have yourself to blame for your football level falling off a cliff. The fact he doesn't have the humility to accept he isn't that player anymore and the people around him still delude him in thinking he's the best in the world means you're left in the situation he is:

Unemployed and your best pending offer is Al-Nassr.

Casciavit wrote:Ronaldo is easily the 2nd greatest player of his generation. However, his all-time standing has been damaged by the events of the last few years.

He wins the Euros, 3peat, and ties Messi in Ballon d'ors. He gets butthurt that Florentino won't put him on a Messi-level salary, so he goes to Juve.

At the time it sounded fine. It meant he would've been able to statpad league titles which was something he couldn't do in Spain. He could claim he's won the league title in 3 major leagues. Most importantly, he can create the narrative that he was the missing piece that Juve needed to win the CL. Winning the CL with Juve, and then 3 different teams would've really made him Mr. Champions League and improved his GOAT standing with casuals.

The opposite happened. Quagliarella and Immobile outscored him, and Juve ended up getting knocked out against 3 inferior teams in Ajax, Lyon, and Porto. In his last season they ended up losing the league title and finishing 4th. It was time for Ronaldo to find a new challenge.

He wants to go to the Premier League. Going to Man City made more sense from a stats POV, but he decided to go to United. They were paying a higher salary, and his former teammates and manager were begging him to join United instead. United make two big signings in Sancho and Varane. Once again, Ronaldo would've been the missing piece to help them win their first PL title since 2013. Instead of finishing 1st they finished 6th.

Later that season his former team, Madrid, ended up winning the CL again after going through the hardest route in CL history. Benzema did a bigger carry job than Ronaldo ever has, and the fact that Madrid won again without him despite having a similar spine to when he was there showed he wasn't the difference maker he thought he was.

Then this season comes up, and he ditches preseason because he's trying to get Mendes to engineer him a move outside of United so he can still maintain his top CL scorer record. The only interested teams were the likes of Napoli, Sporting, and Al-Nassr. He ends up staying and stinks it up every time he plays. Mind you, Ronaldo still believes he's the best in the world, so the moment Ten Hag benched him he had to blow a fit each time. Whether it was leaving the stadium early, or refusing to come on. It cumulated with the Piers Morgan interview that led to him getting FIRED.

Now obviously the reason he did the interview was so he could get fired. The World Cup was coming up and the plan was clear. The plan was to show he was still 'that guy' during the WC, and use it as an exhibition to show the big teams he can still play at the highest level. What ended up happening? He dived for a penalty in his first game, gaslit his teammate into thinking Ronaldo scored in the second game, and then assisted Korea's goal in the 3rd game. Santos benches him in the R16, and his sub ends up scoring a hattrick and Portugal win 6-1.

The quarters come up and he gets benched again. He comes on in the 60th minute, but they still end up losing to Morocco. He leaves the field in tears. Messi ends up winning the World Cup 2 weeks later after starring throughout the tournament and scoring twice in the best final ever. Newspapers and pundits start calling him the unanimous GOAT, the Qatar king crowns him with a robe to symbolize he's conquered football, and Messi even steals the Instagram d'or from Ronaldo by having his WC picture be the most liked picture ever.

During that time his shocking World Cup record gets exposed. Exits to the likes of Ghana/US, Uruguay, and Morocco. Zero G/A in the knockout rounds, and one memorable performance in 5 World Cups which was the group game against Spain. Yes, Portugal aren't Brazil, but they should've done better than they did given that Ronaldo was supposedly the most clutch player ever and could supposedly carry teams too. People then dissect his Euro performance and find that Portugal finished 3rd in their group, and he was injured in the final and his biggest international contribution was acting like a coach for the cameras in the Euro 2016 final.

It's been L after L for Ronaldo since 2018. The fact that he isn't a likeable person, and people can see he's a delusional narcissist means he's being shat on more than usual. When you sacrifice your overall game to compete on stats, and the stats are no longer there, then you have yourself to blame for your football level falling off a cliff. The fact he doesn't have the humility to accept he isn't that player anymore and the people around him still delude him in thinking he's the best in the world means you're left in the situation he is:

Unemployed and your best pending offer is Al-Nassr.

@Casciavit, You just Made a Legendary post.

I said when Ronaldo moved to Juve that I thought he believed his own hype too much, and that’s exactly what seems to have been the case. He actually thought that he was the one carrying Real to their CLs and he could do the same with Juve, and then later Man Utd. I’m glad the ridiculous narrative that he could somehow carry teams better than Messi was exposed. Both Messi and Ronaldo only hit their greatest heights with amazing supporting casts. That’s how football works…

Ronaldo's biggest mistake was leaving Real Madrid. He was comfortable there. Breaking record after record. He was regarded as better than Messi. He then got greedy and left talking shit about the club that was geared towards making him comfortable and propelled him to legendary heights. It was only downwards from there.

If you look at Ronaldo's highlights from his time at RM you'll understand how otherwordly great he was. As a RM fan I can't hate him as a footballer. He is a terrible person but one of the best in history as a footballer.

He knew he made a mistake, he tried to come back twice but Perez had moved on. We've now won CL again and Ronaldo can't even get Sporting to make a move for him.

Its not like Pérez tried the impossible to keep him. He saw the writing in the wall and let him go with a light heart.

Perez letting him go was a matter of club financial economics. Perez knew that he couldn’t pay players more than income and certainly not half or more of that salary load to one player. These two players year after year, in their battle to be recognized as best (real or not) literally blackmailed their clubs into a higher salary.

So in a sense, the move to Juve, was driven more from Perez not prepared to meet the latest and last demand than any desire he might have had to find new challenges!

And in a sense, Messi’s move to PSG was much of the same as Laporte realized he couldn’t afford Messi’s salary. The big difference though is after a year of adjustment, Messi has returned to his normal, if not greater play whereas Ronaldo has continually gone downhill, much of it due to his terrible personality and him not able to recognize his own decline.

What a sour end to what is an absolutely legendary career Ronaldo has had. But at the same time, it doesn't really change what he accomplished because as time moves steadily along, we tend to just remember the good and the great.

While I love Cas' post (maybe his best all year), I disagree that the foolish and ill-advised behaviour Ronaldo is doing now is going to have an affect on his legacy as his legacy is that he was a fantastic footballer. He's a club legend at Real Madrid (the greatest player in the club's history according to many (not me though)) and still the CL's all time leading goal scorer, that cannot be taken away no matter what we or realistically himself say or do.

As I would always say on this matter, he ain't the first great man or great woman to have difficulties in accepting they are no longer good and Ronaldo ain't gonna be the last.

Ronaldo is perfectly imperfect. If anything, this seemingly inevitable anticlimactic end to Ronaldo's career goes hand in hand with his all consuming, "me against them" brand of ethos. A furiously insular, fitting end. Ronaldo, banished by the gods of Olympus to his solitary, empty trophy room (he only really needs one thing). To the depths of Siberia.



The world keeps moving though, right now is currently Ronaldo's lowest point, but only time will tell how this all keeps re-contextualizing. I wouldn't blame Perez for not wanting to touch Cristiano with a 10 foot pole (quite the contrary), but I'd personally perhaps consider giving him 6 months worth of a last dance, for old time's sake. Would perhaps be easier to swallow if Ronaldo promised to play nice and if La Liga was more of a formality that we had guaranteed already, which we of course, don't. It is somberly reaffirming to know Madrid doesn't stop for anyone.

If it's any consolation to Ronaldo, I can hardly think of any generational football player who had fairy tale endings to their careers, in fact, the idiosyncratic legends of those players (e.g. Maradona, Zidane, R9, Ronaldinho) are magnified by their Pathos. He may be a fallen god, but he nonetheless still is, indeed.. a god.

Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim.
Assalamu'alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh to Muslim.
Good day to Others.

What is your opinion?

guest_07 wrote:Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim.
Assalamu'alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh to Muslim.
Good day to Others.

What is your opinion?

https://twitter.com/Altin10i/status/1606684938425626629?t=QxgKzBqrJYgtObysjW4mZQ&s=19

It was obvious to anyone watching it at the time. Portugal’s only achievement in that tournament was beating France, and Ronaldo didn’t play. When Ronaldo actually did play they finished 3rd in their group and scraped through one of the easiest routes to the final you’ll ever see.

The fact that people actually consider that to be an achievement just goes to show how short memories in football are. It’s why I agree with those saying Ronaldo’s legacy won’t be affected by recent events. People will remember the 3peat, bicycle kick against Juve, etc and forget the rest.

Cruijf wrote:

guest_07 wrote:Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim.
Assalamu'alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh to Muslim.
Good day to Others.

What is your opinion?

https://twitter.com/Altin10i/status/1606684938425626629?t=QxgKzBqrJYgtObysjW4mZQ&s=19

It was obvious to anyone watching it at the time. Portugal’s only achievement in that tournament was beating France, and Ronaldo didn’t play. When Ronaldo actually did play they finished 3rd in their group and scraped through one of the easiest routes to the final you’ll ever see.

The fact that people actually consider that to be an achievement just goes to show how short memories in football are. It’s why I agree with those saying Ronaldo’s legacy won’t be affected by recent events. People will remember the 3peat, bicycle kick against Juve, etc and forget the rest.

Sometime I question their
understanding of football.

Wallahu a'lam.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Its not like Pérez tried the impossible to keep him. He saw the writing in the wall and let him go with a light heart.

Nothing to do with his footballing ability. Perez kept Bale despite him playing golf half the time.

Ronaldo was just a terrible employee given he complained almost daily to the point Perez got tired of his antics. He did the same to Ramos who was our best captain ever. Both of them were thorns in his backside. He couldn't wait to see the back of them as soon as he thought he had adequate replacements (Hazard and Alaba)

He would've offloaded bale if he could get a good price for him.

For cristiano he saw a depreciating asset and chose the (right imo) moment to sell. Purely financial. Like Bart should have done with Messi when he asked to leave.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:He would've offloaded bale if he could get a good price for him.

For cristiano he saw a depreciating asset and chose the (right imo) moment to sell. Purely financial. Like Bart should have done with Messi when he asked to leave.

Perez didn't stand in the way of anyone who've wanted to leave. He let Casemiro leave in his prime, he let ADM leave when he was a huge part of our LaDecima and Ozil when he too started to get greedy despite huge locker room figures begging Perez not to sell him. Perez never stands in the way of players wanted to leave. Ronaldo gave Perez an ultimatum, give me what I want or I'll leave, Perez' response was get a club to match what we value you as and you can be on your way. You are completely mistaken if you think Perez will beg any of our players to stay if they start to get greedy.

According to ADM it was Real who wanted him out, to make room for James Rodriguez. I’ll take your word for it on the other examples.

“Everybody had heard the rumors that Real wanted to sign James Rodríguez after the World Cup, and I knew that they were going to sell me to make room for him”

https://www.theplayerstribune.com/articles/angel-di-maria-argentina-english

@cruijf, basically Perez will never break salary structure no matter what, so if a player wants to leave it most likely has to do with $$$$


@cas, good post and I agree with most of your points, like 80-90% of your post, but I do want to point out a few things

-BF stated that gerd muller was a better footballer and player then Ronaldo. Things like that tend to give me the impression he’s biased and a butthurt Barca fan. You said top 5 or top 10. I personally agree, although in his last season he absolutely did carry us through the champions league and delivered clutch performances when it mattered through out the years against very big teams. This is why I would put him on par with Pele, cruyff, maradona, etc, but Messi is in another realm for obvious reasons now. There’s also valid reasons for putting someone like iniesta or cruyff over CR7, although I wouldn’t agree with them, I would definitely understand those reasons

- He left mostly because Perez made empty promises to him about his salary. Yes, it was about money, but context does matter. That’s a very rare L on Flo’s part

- His first two seasons at juventus were very good. His last season was average. His man United years I would say really showed his decline as a player. Fair. The thing is, we keep assuming Ronaldo is this average footballer who can’t do anything besides score tap ins, and the only people who peddle this are Messi fans. Anyone looks average when you compare them to Messi. Henry would look like a pace merchant if you compared him to Messi with zero other qualities. The comparison is what actually makes people underrate him severely in other parts of his game.  He has a good cross on him with both feet, good speed, good at beating players one on one, but we see someone like Leo dribble the whole team 3-4 times a game in his prime.. yeah nothing can compare to that

- We can all agree that he’s one weird and messed up human being at times, but that has nothing to do with his footballing ability.

halamadrid2 wrote:Ronaldo's biggest mistake was leaving Real Madrid. He was comfortable there. Breaking record after record. He was regarded as better than Messi.

Literally, no one but CRsexuals believed that to be true. Objectively, Messi distinguished himself as the better player at every step of the way. CR just kept up with Messi statistically but even then his stats were just short of Messi's. Overall play was never in question.

I agree with your point CR should've stayed with Madrid, he bought a little too much into his own hype thinking he was the sole reason for Madrid's CL 3-peat and success, completely overlooking the fact that Madrid was the most stacked team in Europe.

Cruijf wrote:According to ADM it was Real who wanted him out, to make room for James Rodriguez. I’ll take your word for it on the other examples.

“Everybody had heard the rumors that Real wanted to sign James Rodríguez after the World Cup, and I knew that they were going to sell me to make room for him”

https://www.theplayerstribune.com/articles/angel-di-maria-argentina-english

If a player doesn't want to leave they won't leave. I think we should establish by now that our club never forces a player out. Look at Mariano, he has been surplus to requirements on huge wages. The club has invited him to leave but never forced him. He is now abiut to see out his contract. ADM can say what he wants, he only joined Utd because they offered crazy wages. His wife confirned it

McAgger wrote:

halamadrid2 wrote:Ronaldo's biggest mistake was leaving Real Madrid. He was comfortable there. Breaking record after record. He was regarded as better than Messi.

Literally, no one but CRsexuals believed that to be true. Objectively, Messi distinguished himself as the better player at every step of the way. CR just kept up with Messi statistically but even then his stats were just short of Messi's. Overall play was never in question.

I agree with your point CR should've stayed with Madrid, he bought a little too much into his own hype thinking he was the sole reason for Madrid's CL 3-peat and success, completely overlooking the fact that Madrid was the most stacked team in Europe.

Ronaldo was much better than Messi back then. Just look back at this thread during that time. Ronaldo was scoring in pretty much every big game while Messi steered Barca out of CL constantly and flopped in every single Clasico. Ronaldo became a forgotten man once he left RM and started getting eliminated by the likes of Lyon. If he'd stayed Messi would be nowhere near him in the CL scoring chart and he'd have at least 1 more balond'or