Is he still playing?
Cristiano Ronaldo - Much Ado About Al Nassr
- Thread starter Bastian
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
He was certainly our X factor, but in Fergies words he played in the strongest he'd ever assembled. All i mean is he was our star attacking player in that team. We were unlucky to not win 3 league titles in a row after he left, chelsea offside goal and Aguero and all that. We had no chance against 2011 Barca though. With or without Ronnie.
So appropriate username to discuss the Ronaldo dilemma.
I was just having a lengthy debate on this topic with a friend and I struggle to comprehend how anyone can't see Ronaldo was the problem?
- After shooting to stardom in a dominant United team SAF barely contained him and his ego in his final season as he was already Real bound and in his final season a lot of gameplay had to be accommodated to keep him happy.
- Real won a lottery, had Ronaldo for his best years, sold him for as much as they paid for him and got rid of him when his ego was becoming unbearable.
- If I recall correctly there were not many suitors when Ronaldo left for Juventus and for all his goals he didn't bring them another champions league for what he was brought and in the quality laden squad full of seasoned pros and strong characters he was wreaking havoc on the team morale and disrupted team spirit to no end.
- After Juventus only United was stupid enough to take him - in a hindsight I don't know if City offer was genuine or not and he would probably flourish in City system but maybe it would be for the best if he went to City and destroyed their squad harmony
- For all goals scored in United on his second coming he was a negative presence, self-centered, didn't play as instructed, no pressing it was all about getting ball to him and padding his stats. Threw coach, teammates and club under the bus and burned bridges as he left. United was not in a good shape is not in a good shape but Ronaldo part 2 experiment was a wholesome failure.
- After he left United no team in Europe would touch him with a barge pole. He left for Saudis and is making ambassadorial effort there playing scoring some goals that are immediately highlighted as the second coming of Jesus etc.
Bottom line for me was that he was past it to cut it in EPL and was a problem for United and had to leave. That we hadn't replaced him adequately is another topic.
He will be remembered as probably one of the top 5 or top 10 players of all time, his first time in United will be remembered fondly.
One of the GOAT's but unbearable presence in his latter years.
Change my mind.
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871
The joker meets the riddler
Why would you need to adequately replace someone who was past it for the EPL? If someone is past a league's level, shouldn't it be extremely easy to replace?
In any case, I see things a bit differently than you, agree with a couple of points you made for sure, just found that one sentence particularly interesting.
Admittedly I haven't seen it yet but I reckon he might have just scored the greatest penalty of all time
Fecking hell he almost killed the net 
"That net had a family!"Fecking hell he almost killed the net
Should have just told them it was gay, a journalist or shared critical views on social media and the State would have done it for him.Fecking hell he almost killed the net
Who are the top ten?So appropriate username to discuss the Ronaldo dilemma.
I was just having a lengthy debate on this topic with a friend and I struggle to comprehend how anyone can't see Ronaldo was the problem?
- After shooting to stardom in a dominant United team SAF barely contained him and his ego in his final season as he was already Real bound and in his final season a lot of gameplay had to be accommodated to keep him happy.
- Real won a lottery, had Ronaldo for his best years, sold him for as much as they paid for him and got rid of him when his ego was becoming unbearable.
- If I recall correctly there were not many suitors when Ronaldo left for Juventus and for all his goals he didn't bring them another champions league for what he was brought and in the quality laden squad full of seasoned pros and strong characters he was wreaking havoc on the team morale and disrupted team spirit to no end.
- After Juventus only United was stupid enough to take him - in a hindsight I don't know if City offer was genuine or not and he would probably flourish in City system but maybe it would be for the best if he went to City and destroyed their squad harmony
- For all goals scored in United on his second coming he was a negative presence, self-centered, didn't play as instructed, no pressing it was all about getting ball to him and padding his stats. Threw coach, teammates and club under the bus and burned bridges as he left. United was not in a good shape is not in a good shape but Ronaldo part 2 experiment was a wholesome failure.
- After he left United no team in Europe would touch him with a barge pole. He left for Saudis and is making ambassadorial effort there playing scoring some goals that are immediately highlighted as the second coming of Jesus etc.
Bottom line for me was that he was past it to cut it in EPL and was a problem for United and had to leave. That we hadn't replaced him adequately is another topic.
He will be remembered as probably one of the top 5 or top 10 players of all time, his first time in United will be remembered fondly.
One of the GOAT's but unbearable presence in his latter years.
Change my mind.
872
Hard to say and based on personal opinions and criteria's. Would go with something like this:
Lionel Messi
Pelé
Diego Maradona
Cristiano Ronaldo
Johan Cruyff
Franz Beckenbauer
Alfredo Di Stéfano
Ronaldo Nazário
Michel Platini
Zinedine Zidane
You’re a weird guy
How many penaltys this year? He has like 20.
Hero of the Tik Tok Derby. Good on ya
Why did that trigger you?!
I’d put Di Stefano ahead of Ronaldo personally as in his era he was just a monster of a player until Pele arrived on the scene he was untouchable.
Platini looking back at older clips I think was an incredible footballer. Certainly seemed to be more of a natural creator than anyone bar Messi in history from what I could tell.
Maradona was more a force of nature but Platini was back then seemingly putting in higher numbers on average. A genius in his own right.
I need to watch more of Cruyff. I haven’t quite seen why he was rated so high but I bet it’s a bit like kids today won’t understand Xavi and Iniesta in the future either and how they dominated completely without putting in obvious numbers.
53 goals in 2023.
It’s great to see Benzema assists Ronaldo a goal again (penalty).
It’s great to see Benzema assists Ronaldo a goal again (penalty).
Di Stefano has the claim to be greatest club footballer ever in terms of how dominating he was at Real Madrid back in 50s-60s, while Ronaldo has to compete with Messi all the time at club level, winning and losing etc
But imo it was his international career which really came short in comparing with other GOATs. So in respect to this I think Ronaldo is ahead of him.
Ronaldo vs Di Stefano:
Domestic domination: Di Stefano (8 La Liga, overall 13 league titles won)
European domination: tie (5 vs 5)
International career: Ronaldo (2 trophies + most goals)
Individual goals/stats/records/honours: Ronaldo
47. 6 goals are in a non-official tournament.
Did it? I just said it’s weird. Triggered is what happens to you when anyone has the temerity to say anything negative about the subject of the thread (or any of acolytes too apparently).
Well you may also say LIV in golf are non-official too as it’s not recognized by PGA, the largest governing body in golf. But it’s kinda meaningless argument.
If European Super league happened in future, it will be non-official too, if you are looking from FIFA angle.
Congrats you know that to use Wikipedia
973
12
His final season at United was problematic and unbearable to many Man Utd fans. But apart from that it was extremely unfair/double standard to criticise his time at Juventus. Since when does not winning CL considered a failure though? Maradona never won one for Napoli or for whole of his European club career. L.Ronaldo never won one during his whole European club career. Are they considered failure at club level?So appropriate username to discuss the Ronaldo dilemma.
I was just having a lengthy debate on this topic with a friend and I struggle to comprehend how anyone can't see Ronaldo was the problem?
- After shooting to stardom in a dominant United team SAF barely contained him and his ego in his final season as he was already Real bound and in his final season a lot of gameplay had to be accommodated to keep him happy.
- Real won a lottery, had Ronaldo for his best years, sold him for as much as they paid for him and got rid of him when his ego was becoming unbearable.
- If I recall correctly there were not many suitors when Ronaldo left for Juventus and for all his goals he didn't bring them another champions league for what he was brought and in the quality laden squad full of seasoned pros and strong characters he was wreaking havoc on the team morale and disrupted team spirit to no end.
- After Juventus only United was stupid enough to take him - in a hindsight I don't know if City offer was genuine or not and he would probably flourish in City system but maybe it would be for the best if he went to City and destroyed their squad harmony
- For all goals scored in United on his second coming he was a negative presence, self-centered, didn't play as instructed, no pressing it was all about getting ball to him and padding his stats. Threw coach, teammates and club under the bus and burned bridges as he left. United was not in a good shape is not in a good shape but Ronaldo part 2 experiment was a wholesome failure.
- After he left United no team in Europe would touch him with a barge pole. He left for Saudis and is making ambassadorial effort there playing scoring some goals that are immediately highlighted as the second coming of Jesus etc.
Bottom line for me was that he was past it to cut it in EPL and was a problem for United and had to leave. That we hadn't replaced him adequately is another topic.
He will be remembered as probably one of the top 5 or top 10 players of all time, his first time in United will be remembered fondly.
One of the GOAT's but unbearable presence in his latter years.
Change my mind.
Even Messi never won one again since 2015. Is his club career considered a failure from 2015 onwards?
Very unfair to compare eras. For much of some of those players careers, it was only the champions of each country who played in the CL. Then the champions plus the runner up. It’s a fairly recent development that the top four from many leagues qualify; meaning most, or a lot, of the top players now have a chance to win it almost every season. In Maradona’s day, you had very limited opportunities to win the European cup. He played in it for Napoli only in 87-88 and 90-91. Two seasons.
When Ronaldo was at Juve they were basically assured participation every season he was there, such was their hegemony over the Italian league. They could afford to rest key players at the weekend and focus on Europe. With that in mind, Ronaldo was signed to (a) increase the profile of the club and league, and (b) deliver a much overdue Champions League trophy.
While on an individual level he tallied up good stats in the league. Most observers will say that Juve actually got worse with him in the team. He scored more but the team scored less. Such is his demand to have everything be served up to him, and not being a real team player. He was the same at United and Madrid but his preternatural goal scoring abilities meant it didn’t matter. Once at Juve and on the decline, he just made them worse.
As one famous Italian journalist put it - and a description that caught on in popularity - Ronaldo creates a problem that only he himself can solve.
At United, for his second spell, he took us considerably backwards. Not just the predictability in how we played as a result of his presence; but his toxic presence in the dressing room.
It's a guy keeping track of the number of goals Ronaldo scores in the Ronaldo thread. I don't think that's weird but yes I do think you sound triggered. Which is weird.
It would be cooler if he attached a clip of each goal he's counting.
Agree!
You may argue Maradona era is harder to qualify for one. But the criteria to win one is the same - there’s only 1 winner each year, and you have to become best team in Europe beating everyone you face to win it. One could even argue although it’s harder to qualify back then, it’s harder to win one in current era as there are more quality teams in the competitions nowadays.
As for Juventus, their whole squad have aging problems on their own regardless of Ronaldo joining them or not, which coincided with the period Ronaldo playing for them. Their worst ever seasons as of recent decade is actually after Ronaldo has gone and left them from 2021 onwards.
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In that way its not just stat counting but a bit more thematic.
How much penalties he has in that league? Is that in his contract? "One penalty per game must be assured by officials"
Duly noted, I will henceforth!
That penalty was such a rocket
Unfortunately, there's a guy in our league who has scored 54 goals in 2023.
Unfortunately, there's a guy in our league who has scored 54 goals in 2023.
Well he has 15 in total year, but i think that includes Portugal. 100% conversation rate though.
No, it’s weird, you don’t even see it for other players, I can’t even recall seeing it done for United players during the many years I’ve read the forum. It’s even weirder given the level he’s playing at and his recent behaviour towards the club. And as probably the most aggressive and frequently triggered poster throughout this whole thread, it’s even weirder for you to be the one trying to make a big deal of what I said
Are there any other players gunning for 1000 official goals...?