Cristiano Ronaldo - v1

[ShandyFFM]

if you just see the space he has compared to messi... its a joke.... although i fear that he could break the 91 goals record this year... last year messi had 17 goals to the time and now ronaldo has the same ...

its a real shame barcas attack is all about messi if he gets marked its over

 

[aaron101]

For me, Messi and Ronaldo makes this rivalry better than any other Barca-Madrid era. It doesn't matter who does this who does that. We won't see this kind of rivalry in the future for sure.

 

[ShandyFFM]

his workrate caompared to messis is amazin... i hate to say this

 

[misterplatin]

some of us cules here are really acting like a bunch of kids and downplaying his stats..
he has been brilliant against us lately and definitely the best player so far in 2013..

so true , Ronaldo has performed exceptionally good for Real Madrid . He came to Liga and straight away picked up the pace . If it is so easy for any good player to perform on regular basis ,Kaka would be great too . For me Ronaldo will go as game's one of the greats .

 

[Paganinisrvnge]

On one hand I am annoyed that of all people it had to be him to be there for the 2nd goal to tap it in because it just sparks up the ronaldo vs messi debate again. On the other hand, I have to give him credit for taking his chances. He's proved that he's still a force to be reckoned with and will punish any defense when given the chance.

As for the debate of an all-time great; it really is something that cannot be talked about right now.

Think about it. Right now, everyone is on Messi's case for under performing in 2013 and I am one of those who is disappointed in the fact that he hasn't stepped it up. Of course a lot of the blame is on management picking the same useless starting 11 with no finishers besides Messi but there are a lot of people who will want to put the blame solely on Messi. Great players take the glory but also are burdened with the responsibilities of their teams' failures.

No player in any team sport can ever be successful in every single competition every season. Both Ronaldo and Messi have many years of footballing at a high level to establish themselves a place in the pantheon of greats. There will be more disappointments for both but there will also be successes. Ronaldo has shown a remarkable resolve from being constantly 2nd to Messi yet still pushing himself to be better than before. He may seem arrogant but his determination is admirable.

For the sake of Barcelona, I hope that Messi can learn from Ronaldo and stay determined on being the best player he can possibly be. Also for the sake of Barcelona, I hope that Barcelona learn from watching Real Madrid and Di Maria in particular that having someone who can take on their man and wreak havoc on the opposing defense is a huge help for the star player.

 

[mobster_1930]

Not so long ago I wrote here that C. Ronaldo is better player than "old" Ronaldo ever was, and I've got laughed off beacuse of my statement. The truth is that Ronaldo is great, he's up there with Messi, I can just imagine how team would look like with Ronaldo and Messi in one team. Altough he seems like arrogant, I think he's good lad. He's top top professional and top talent. Messi needs to show what kind of character he is after suffering setback like this, Ronaldo already showed how his mentality is strong, not really something I can say for Messi right now.

 

[hellsangel1]

Ronaldo is all-time great scorer. He will go down in history as one of the best in that aspect. However, he comes up short in some other aspects of the game. Ronaldo is a WINGER but his passing, vision and distribution are pretty ordinary at best. His style of play is very individualistic. His defensive work as a winger has also been questioned in the past and opposing teams have taken advantage and attacked down his flank although that aspect has definitely improved in recent times. The great players weren't just great players themselves but made others around them great and I don't think Ronaldo does that. When Ronaldo doesn't score, it just seems like he's completely ineffective, that's why he was so criticized againt Barca in the past. It wasn't just that he didn't score, it's that he hardly did anything right. It just seems like in games, particularly in the big games, Ronaldo really needs to score to make his mark otherwise he is just ineffective as the other aspects of his game are just pretty ordinary.

Messi on the other hand, doesn't need to score in order to be effective. Look at his assist to Pedro at the Camp Nou in the Copa Del Rey last season or his assist to Alexis in the 3-1 win at SB last year. Or even his performance in the 5-0 win, Messi was one of the best players in the game even though he didn't get on the score-sheet.

Messi's passing, vision, touch and control in tight spaces is far superior and that's what makes him a better PLAYER even though one can certainly make an argument that Ronaldo is a better goal-scorer (even though he has scored less in the same time as Messi while taking many,many more shots).

 

[Yannick03]

Not so long ago I wrote here that C. Ronaldo is better player than "old" Ronaldo ever was, and I've got laughed off beacuse of my statement. The truth is that Ronaldo is great, he's up there with Messi, I can just imagine how team would look like with Ronaldo and Messi in one team. Altough he seems like arrogant, I think he's good lad. He's top top professional and top talent. Messi needs to show what kind of character he is after suffering setback like this, Ronaldo already showed how his mentality is strong, not really something I can say for Messi right now.

Let's not get carried away, the real Ronaldo is still much better. Messi saved our asses butload of time, because he didn't do it this time while being sick and while the team was rubbish is not a reason to speak ill of him. Messi's will to win is probably even bigger than Ronaldo's, you'll see.

 

[ShandyFFM]

he was so freaking luck to stand there at the right time and although to score with a shot which went through albas legs.. how lucky can you be...

 

[Yugi]

scored a penalty and a tap in after di maria´s hardwork
what a fucking player

 

[hellsangel1]

One of the things is that Madrid's philosophy as a team is working in that they can get the best out of Ronaldo. You can see in these games how much open space he can run into or getting into a 1v1 situation with our defenders. Puyol is old now and Pique was never good in one-on-one situations. Imagine how Messi would perform if he were in that situation with that much open space. That's why Madrid just punt the ball upfield so much. They just want to test out our defenders in the open field and want their pacy players like Di Maria and Ronaldo to have a go at them. A lot of the times they will just put a long cross upfield and ask Cristiano or Di Maria to chase after the ball in the open space and trust that they will win their individual battle. A lot of their goals are from our defensive mistakes particularly in this game, but they are mistakes induced by a tactic so one cannot solely blame our defenders although they didn't do much to help the team;s cause anyway.

I wonder if we could just drop off a little deeper like United do. At United, you can even see Van Persie at times at the halfway line chasing the ball, but that also means that when United do get the ball, they usually have more space to work with going forward and they usually attack from the wings as well. I know all this would mean a radical changing of our philosophy from a possession-based side but I wonder if we could do it sometimes, especially against Madrid. We all saw how Madrid looked demoralized towards the end when Di Maria and Ronaldo just didn't have space to run into. The only problem is that we don't have a defense that is organized or good enough to work together off the ball and we don't have pacy wingers that can exploit the open space and run behind a defense. I wonder if we can really afford to press that high up the pitch despite the fact that we don't have CB's with pace. It's just a thought that has come to my mind because we are getting exposed more and more on the counter-attack even by sides with far lesser quality,ability and pace than this Madrid side. I don't know about this but Madrid tried and suffered various defeats but then figured out a way to make life difficult for us. Maybe we should try different things as it seems that Madrid is winning the tactical battle at the moment.

 

[Raed]

I'd like to make a few corrections to this sentence and it honestly is not based on any views I may have on Ronaldo for being a Madrid player, Cristiano Ronaldo is not really an all time great. he get close to them but doesnt make the list in any way.
An all time great doesn't need two and a half years to over come his fear of a team however big they may be. I dont intend to make this a messi ronaldo comparison but an all time great is one who carries his team at 20 and scores 3 against an all superstar team in high mental pressure and out shines them all. It is not hard to believe that if a player in mold of Kun or Falcao had the advantages that Ronaldo has, would have surpassed him by now. Much of Ronaldo's current rate of scoring against Barcelona comes from Barca's defensive fuck ups rather than Ronaldo's brilliance. we gift him space and shitty defending and an even shittier goal keeper, If he can not deliver in such situations he doesn't deserve to be in Real Madrid's starting 11.

I go into the Varane thread and you said Messi would have reduced him to tears, I go into here and you are arguing against Ronaldo. I am sure you aren't a bitter person but you are coming off as such, take no offense please.

 

[Raed]

Let's not get carried away, the real Ronaldo is still much better. Messi saved our asses butload of time, because he didn't do it this time while being sick and while the team was rubbish is not a reason to speak ill of him. Messi's will to win is probably even bigger than Ronaldo's, you'll see.

The real Ronaldo was even better than Messi, just didn't try as hard. At the age of 20, he had scored 34 league goals, at the same age Messi had much less. Ronaldo never built on that though, he didn't work as hard as Messi or Ronaldo and didn't pick the right teams with the right coach, he just went were the grass seemed greener.

In the end, compare Ronaldo' career to Cristiano's and Messi's and he would come up short on club level, so in the end, both players were more influential to the game. But none entertained the way Ronaldo did, and the proof is that Ronaldo had zero haters, everyone LOVED Ronaldo but not everyone enjoys Messi or Cristiano. Then there is Ronaldinho who had everything to be the best footballer in the history of the game but spoiled himself.

 

[DucdeOrléans]

You can't use age or goals as a parameter to define which player is/was better or more influential. Messi only became a forward in the sense of the word during the 2008-2009 season at the age of 21 and he scored 38 goals that season (if I remember correctly) and won a treble...

Ronaldo was the better player when still a talent until his horrible injury against Lazio but afterwards he was no match for either Messi nor Cristiano Ronaldo.

I think that most experts would rate Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo higher simply due to their achievements (trophies won) and most importantly consistency. We are just used to seeing them at this insanely high level and consistency so we regard it as "normal". Such consistency was never displayed by neither Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Figo or even Zidane etc. But as everything old we have a tendency to rate it above the current.

Anyway Messi in terms of talent and impact is better than both Ronaldo's. Hell, even Ronaldinho was that at his best but it lasted only for a while. Anyway Messi is only 25 years old and he has plenty of time to cement his legacy even more and I will have no doubt in my mind that it will be a huge legacy.

 

[Doobs]

Let's not talk about bitterness, there has been a fair share of it from Madridista's in the past too. I think Clockwise had perfectly legitimate points.