Just a heads up. I am 40 and been following and playing football all of my life. I have been reading this forum for almost 15 years. I have seen some of you condescend 'newbies' in the past while I have lurked, which makes me cringe, because how new someone is to a football forum has no relevance on how good a poster they are. There are loads of clueless posters on here and, frankly, I don't think your newbie system works, so I would appreciate no snarky comments about me being new from the usual cliquey suspects (not that I want to to keep posting anyway, i will say what I want to say and that will be it, assuming my post is allowed).
I hate Man United and this clown Ronaldo (probably Ronaldo more so). I acknowledge that he has been a top player but, honestly, I don't think he comes anywhere close to Messi, Maradona, Pele, Cruyff etc and he at best limps into the top ten of all time. I think his reputation is vastly out of proportion to his actual ability.The reasons I think he is overrated have mostly been covered by the poster Zehner on here ie the overreliance on goal stats at the expense of general contribution, which is also a feature of his return to your club because I agree with those who say that his goalscoring is far outweighed by the fact his team mates get worse with him in the team. Also the Americanisation of football with emphasis on stats, physique and celebrity. Ronaldo's been the same at every club to be honest, where he has needed an entire team set up for him to get him his out of context, inflated goal stats. Other reasons are I just much prefer players who are more technical than athletic, and who are more possession type players and great in tight spaces, whereas he's more of a pace and power merchant (which is why he is struggling so much now he's lost both). Admittedly in terms of stature and style of play I am much more like Messi or Maradona and can identify better with them (at my infinitely lower level of football, obviously) so it's natural I would prefer them to a tall, athletic counter-attack player like Ronaldo .Like I say I could write an essay on why I think he's overrated, but that isn't what I want to say.
There are two things I want to talk about: first, Ronaldo himself and his attitude and personality, and second, the celebrity culture which surrounds him and pervades this forum (the latter which I will cover in the next post).
On Ronaldo himself, it is quite obvious that he is a complete and utter cnut of a guy. First of all the rape allegations (which given what a creepy weirdo he appears to be you can imagine being very true). Some guys are wrongly accused but I don't believe he has been. He comes across as exactly the type of guy who think he is entitled to do anything he wants and is untouchable, and the same will have been true back when these incidents occurred (because there has been more than one allegation) as he has always believed himself above others. He's just so rich and powerful that I believe he got away with it, whereas less rich and powerful footballers rightly did not.
I think the thing about Ronaldo is there are a lot of myths surrouding his personality, and a lot of things people use to try to defend him. First, the charity work. Anyone with half a brain knows that celebrities do charity work for the PR for the most part, so it's obvious that guys like he and Beckham increase their popularity through PR and perversely become richer through their charity work as more (gullible) people start to follow them. They're essentially using charity work as an investment, which is disgusting. Not all celebrities are like this, but most are. Ronaldo especially is micro managed through his 'brand', with his pathetic and cringeworthy CR7 nickname and Siiiuu celebration being identifiable symbols to help recognise the guy. People peddle his brand when they call him by that name or imitate his celebration, and do other things. So that's one myth.
Second, we have the idea that Ronaldo is 'the hardest worker in football'. He probably does work hard, but I think there will be plenty of harder workers, they're just not as famous as him and, tied to the above, don't have his visibility or PR machine. This myth seems to come from his body (which is just the plastic gimp's vanity, to be quite frank). It is quite clear that he works out so his body looks good, and most of his training is centred on his fitness. He has done very little in the last 10 years to improve his frankly putrid pressing, hold up play, first touch, passing and dribbling (he was always a kick and run dribbler, not a proper weaving dribbler, when he did try to be the latter he was a kid and did stupid tricks all the time as you all know). If he was genuinely a hard worker he'd work harder on his actual ball work, but instead he develops his body which is pointless beause he is weak and slow as piss these days. I also doubt the 'professionalism' bollocks given how he has behaved this summer and his general attitude to others.
There also seems to be a subset of people who think that because team-mates don't speak out about him or other players that they must be popular (we seen this with the laughable defenders of that other overrated tosser, Pogba). Team-mates praise each other all the time, and rarely say anything bad about each other, ironically beause they are being professional. I wouldn't be surprised if loads of his ex-Real Madrid and Juventus and current United team-mates cannot stand him. Truthfully it is pretty obvios Ten Hag has zero time for the guy. He refused to attend when Modric (or Messi) won the Ballon 'dor (which, as an aside is a pointless award and glorified popularity contest and shows how petty he is that he cares so much about it). I am convinced for example that Benzema had a dig at him with his 'some players play poorly for 90 minutes then get named Man of the Match when they score the winner late on, I don't want to be that type of player' comment. Real Madrid have done far better without him than he has without them since he left, so I am sure they feel that they got too little credit, and he got too much because of the stats obsessives pervading modern football. Likewise his Juventus team-mates were probably fed up of the tactic 'feed Ronaldo with 10 chances a game and he will score one or two'.
Then there's the guy's so called 'self-belief'. Personally, I am not sure he is that confident. I think a lot of his arrogance is a front for rampant insecurity. He remembers how ugly he used to be pre dental work and plastic surgery (I still think he's ugly now and so do many women, but that's not the point) so he talks himself up as if he's better looking than guys like Brad Pitt and Henry Cavill, guys who in any realistic opinion are miles better looking than he is. The qualities he thinks he has excuse his actions in his eyes. For example, he said people hated him cos he was rich, handsome and successful, but he overlooks that there have been plenty of footballers who have been rich, successful and handsome (plenty much more handsome than him too) who aren't hated. For example guys like Totti, Pirlo, Cannavaro. There's been loads of good looking, talented, rich footballers who people have respect for so maybe he should realise it's probably just the fact he's a cnut. He is surrounded by sycophantic yes men, which contributes to his delusion and detachment from reality. Another example of this is thinking clubs would be lining up for 'the great Ronaldo' this summer, now he will be shocked that no fecker wants him. Shows he is really deluded.
On the football side of his 'arrogance', I think deep down he knows he is nowhere near as good a Messi (or myriad other players from history to be truthful) so he constantly overcompensates, talking himself up and calling himself the king etc. He is stuck in limbo between arrogance and insecurity, like any narcissist. Like they say the self-proclaimed best is far from the best. Fact is in the old Messi debate with him (which I know is very very boring but relevant to his psyche) the vast majority of football professionals think Messi is the much superior player, that is just the general consensus (and the truth) so he will just have to deal with it. Ultimately Messi offers far more than just goalscoring and he doesn't, he knows the only way to keep up with Messi in shallow people's eyes is to score more goals than him, which is why he's obsessed with his goal stats.
Sorry for any typos, I didn't proof read.