"I am, by nature, an unsatisfied person," Cristiano Ronaldo told Portuguese daily Público in a weekend interview. So we can expect Portugal's star turn to be chomping at the bit when his country kicks off its World Cup campaign against Ivory Coast on June 15, after a strangely hollow debut season with Real Madrid.
Going into the national team's last major tournament, Euro 2008, Ronaldo's stock could not have been higher. He had just scored 42 goals for Manchester United as the Red Devils captured their second successive Premier League title and the Champions League from domestic archrivals Chelsea.
Fast-forward two years and the landscape is a little different. On a personal level Ronaldo enjoyed an excellent debut season in La Liga, scoring 26 times in 28 starts, but he ended up without a team trophy for the first time since 2005. No wonder he told Público the experience had left him "frustrated and very sad."
It's important for Ronaldo, arguably at the peak of his powers at 25, to have a successful World Cup campaign. His ability is never in question, but his temperament and attitude have been on occasion, despite his punishing work ethic (in December he owned up to doing a startling 3,000 sit-ups per day). Ronaldo's perfectionism has often been mistaken for, and maybe even spilled into, insufferable arrogance.
Perception has slightly shifted since he signed. There is no suggestion that Ronaldo's paymasters regret bringing him on board or even that they are unhappy with him (and with stats like that, why would they be?), but there has been the odd suspicion that only a few months into the season did they understand what it meant to be taking on such an individual talent.
The now-infamous incident in December's home game with Almeria flagged up a warning. Ronaldo's teammate, Karim Benzema, followed up Ronaldo's saved penalty to put the hosts up 3-2 late in the game, but the Portuguese winger was seemingly too busy sulking about his failure to celebrate with his teammates, who were embracing the young Frenchman. Ronaldo put the cap on this display of apparent self-absorption by ripping off his shirt after scoring the fourth, an automatic (and needless) booking that contributed to his later sending-off for a second caution.
Far more disquieting than this minor incident was that, with Ronaldo suspended at Valencia the following week, Real produced its best performance of the season in overcoming a top-four rival, looking balanced, disciplined and highly motivated.
Is it sheer folly to think that Real is a better club without the second-best player in the world?
Still, Ronaldo's high points were dizzying, including the early-season solo effort that put his side ahead at Villarreal inside 100 seconds of kickoff, or his first hat trick for the club as Real blitzed a dangerous Mallorca side in May. In any other season Real Madrid would have been champion comfortably after garnering 96 points, and Ronaldo was a large part of that effort.
The bet was perhaps reflective not only of global pessimism at Portugal's chances, but the fact that Ronaldo failed to score once in qualifying. He has scored just one goal for his country since Euro 2008, the winner in a friendly against Finland in February 2009.
This dropping-off of Ronaldo's international form (at least on an end-product level) makes it obvious why there's been a few dissenting voices back home for the first time. The Portuguese have always been fiercely proud that one of the world's greatest was one of their own.
There have been times when the Portuguese public and media began to wonder if, like so many players before him, the country's darling's focus was starting to drift away from his country and toward his club. This is a little unfair; Ronaldo has always had enormous pride in representing Portugal (as his post-Euro 2004 final tears showed) and has spoken at length of the added pressure he feels at being Portugal's talisman.
The difference between now and 2008 should take into account one major factor -- the emergence of Lionel Messi as the player he always threatened to become. Two years ago the little Argentine was beginning to impose himself but he was not yet the irresistible force of nature that stands before us today. Ronaldo's inability to lay claim to the mantle of the world's greatest has nothing to do with any fall in his own level and everything to do with someone who threatens to eclipse most of the game's all-time greats.
Seeing Ronaldo and Messi going head-to-head in South Africa will be fascinating. Diego Maradona has yet to find a formula to coax Messi's Barcelona form from him at the international level, while the arrival of the striker Liedson has allowed Ronaldo to return to his preferred right-side role.
But whatever happens in South Africa, the Portuguese will not lack the desire to place himself center stage once again. [end story]
Andy brings up some good points. I'm not sure I agree with all of them. I agree that Ronny feels the pressure from his club and country to be the phenomenal talent every match he plays. He is a dedicated athlete. His Manchester United teammates have said that all along...he is the first to training and the last to leave. This season was a "project fail" from his standpoint; no trophies...no personal accolades. He is accustomed to winning, a trait he learned at United.
The fact that RM bought the "individual" talent, as Andy put it, is exactly why the Perez Project failed the first time and failed on his second go-around. Unless the individuals gel and play as one, they won't be successful. Ronny's very public spat with former Scouser Xabi Alonso when the latter wanted to take a penalty and Ronny insisted on doing it, showed that very attribute...every man for himself. Ronny eventually capitulated to the sulking Alonso (he scored the pen) and as his RM teammates surrounded him, number 9 was nowhere to be found.
My disagreement with Andy is in his assessment of Lionel Messi. Saying that he is going to eclipse the all-time greats is ludicrous. His own countrymen blast him the same way Portugal blast's Ronny..."why don't you score as many goals for us as you do for your club?" How can you say he will surpass Zidane when he hasn't led his team to WC success?
If you took Messi out of Barcelona he would not score the same amount of goals he does now. He's never ventured outside of the defense-poor la liga and I am convinced that his short stature would be suffocated by the physical and big EPLers. He is insulated at Barca by a hugely-talented team. None of them try to stand out (as they do at RM) and their cohesiveness has turned in to trophies and championships.
Ronny enjoyed this same benefit at United. Their innate sense of each other equaled three EPL titles in a row, a Champions League title, and many others. At RM he is seen as "CR94"...a moniker which they draw like a dagger when they feel his play is not up to their standards (as if anyone could do that).
In all honesty, I think that most people hold Messi in higher regard simply based on their personal distaste for Cristiano. What they see as "arrogance" is merely his coping mechanism at being one of the best in the world and trying to live up to everyone else's expectations. He doesn't want to disappoint anyone, especially those who have believed in him.
What are Portugal's chances? It's the World Cup...anything can happen.
*texting* SUSANA...NEED GOALS...PRAY 4 ME...MISS U...CR"
No comments:
Post a Comment