The company probably wouldn't mind when they won 4 champions leagues in 5 years
Cristiano Ronaldo - Much Ado About Al Nassr
- Thread starter Bastian
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Cristiano was terrible in his early years. He lost the ball as often as he beat his marker if not more.
I remember a match when he came on as a sub, ran with the ball, an opponent came to face him and he started doing his step overs only to forget the ball behind and get dispossessed. This was a common scenario with him from 2003 to 2006.
And no, he never did what Luiz Ronaldo was doing in that clip. The Brazilian was a beast technically. Overall as a footballer he was like Mbappe with superior technique.
No player is flawless, and yes he did take absurd shots, but its also absurd to suggest he didn't contribute his teams in his prime, of course he made United better in his first stint, of course he made RM better also.
How many times in that video does he take on one too many or go down a blind alley?
This was a ucl game vs a Portuguese team in 2006 around December. He dribbled alot but also lost the ball alot and made alot of wrong decisions especially in the first half. Fortunately we won the match. That season however still remains his best interms of his approach play and consistenly being an allround threat.
Someone like Ben Arfa completes alot of dribbles but many are meaning less and often lead to nothing; that was Ronaldo 2003 to 06 with wrong decisions, running down blind allies, pointless step overs added to the mix.
Isn't that also Ronaldo's fault himself though for making the argument about goals and stripping down his game so much, so that for the past 5 or 6 years, he has looked static with zero dribbling. Some centre backs dribbled more than he did in the stats when he was at United the second time. So he went from the dribbles per game of Saint Maximin to dribbles per game of Lewis Dunk, meanwhile posting and talking non-stop about goals this and goals that on social media and in interviews.
Ronaldo has done as much as anyone to focus the narrative away from his dribbling skills.
Doubt you watched Ronaldo much then.
Ronaldo even after his knee injury injury:
This was young Ronaldo
There are hours of compilations of him going past his player not because of speed alone but raw technical ability. And yes, as an 18 year old taking on his man he would lose the ball because that's what all attacking players do.
Messi was often tied as the top 3-4 players in La Liga for losing the ball. This is arguably the greatest dribbler ever we are talking about. When you take on players, you lose the ball.
And no R9 was never a dribbler like this. You're just being nostalgic.
True but remember his age as well. Would be interesting to see the dribbling stats of old Giggs vs old Ronaldo.
Yeah I think he and in general fans of Ronaldo value output of goals more than just taking on players. I'm talking about fans who value flair players a lot. They completely forget Ronaldo was full of it when younger. He was never a dribbler like Messi or Hazard and with his size, he was never going to be. Those shorter type of players rely on their low center of gravity and an insane amount of body feints, micro movements to keep the ball to their feet like a magnet when tearing through with the ball.
Ronaldo was a different sort of dribbler and you can never become a GOAT level/World class (whatever you wanna label what Ronaldo has become) with that sort of dribbling unless you are a freak like Ronaldinho (who also couldn't do it for longer than a few years).
That's why he changed his game but again people see the Ronaldo of last 2-3 years or so where he is purely a goal scorer and forget even when he did become more of a goalscorer he would attack from the left and beat his defender with skill often
Dribbling is also a very difficult stat to measure imo.
Messi has the 2nd highest highest take on completion rate with regards to dribbles since Opta started recording it in 2006. Iniesta is 1st and Ronaldo is 20th. I dont doubt though that young Messi lost the ball more often because he was the most adventurous dribbler in the world. If he just played it safe after he had beaten a man or 2 he would rarely lose the ball.
But regards to Ronnie, i rate him as a dribbler as one of the better of his era but he's a tier below the best of all time in that respect.
R9 was not a dribbler like Cristiano, he was a dribbler like R9.
Where is this stat? I just googled and shows Messi as 1st and Ronaldo as 5th in 2019 (by the time Ronaldo was long done taking on players frequently)
Messi's dribbling is still 3.5 per game at 35, which is the same as it was 7 years earlier at 28. But hit a peak of 5.6 per game in 2011.
Ronaldo meanwhile went from a high of 3.1 per game at Real Madrid in 2010 when he was 25 (might have had higher at United, before the stat was measured) all the way down to 0.4 per game this season for United, which is quite the decline in that statistic.
https://m.allfootballapp.com/news/D...-recording-stats-Messi-1st-Hazard-2nd/2054051
remember im talking about succesfull take ones%, not total completed dribbles.
Messi is on class of his own with regards to dribbling which is why i would like too old ronnie vs old giggs stats.
of the list Ronaldo is the only forward you can’t compare rates as a fair comparison since that doesn’t take risk into account especially players playing in different positions.
in context it’s actually impressive he is still fifth on successful dribbles since 2006 despite playing more upfront since
Playing as a wide forward is a pretty good role and position to beat defenders. There is a reason we assosiate wingers with dribbling but wide forwards like Ronaldo have little to no defensive duties which mean they have more freedom to do what they want upfront. Ronnie is high on the list but he's also played more minutes than anyone else by far. Hence you would expect him to have a high total dribbles in his career. Aguero is higher than him despite being a CF and injury stricken. He was a great dribbler though. Especially before City.
I think dribbling agains the final defender to be clear on goal for a shot is more difficult than dribbling deep. You're bound to have a lower success rate
Messi's dribbling peak was when he was 20 and had 9 completed pr. game on average not 5.6
Messi was a total dribbling freak at 19/20. He just lacked the end product to match his genius like the other guy. And being injury free.
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I agree completely. You are not arguing against my arguments.
You could re-write the first half of this paragraph and substitute Ronaldo for R9.
Ronaldo when Real signed him already lost his crazy acceleration and agility but he still had the skillset to go past defenders.
Are you talking about Ronaldo or Ronaldo at Real Madrid Madrid?
Except this seasons version of Cristiano is miles behind where he was last year. When you're in your late 30's a decline can come in a blink of an eye, and it happened.
Btw don't know why we're still talking about this clown, completely forgot he still played football.
I mean sure, speed/acceleration was one of his main assets during his early years. That’s applies to R9 and even Cruyff too. But speed/acceleration alone doesn’t gets you anywhere near there, just look at Daniel James, he often looks hopeless when he is trying to do those kicks and run in straight line and then inevitably ending up falling on his back, because he is clearly lacking all the techniques there. it’s not really hard to see why.
The thing is, when you are playing/dribbling at such high speed, there’s also another sets of techniques required which are largely different than when you do it at normal speed.
By that I mean those beautiful ball technique from the likes of Zidane etc, you know, great control at tight space etc which often looks more elegant on the eyes, which Ronaldo probably isn’t as good, as his game wasn’t even based on tight space possession.
But I am just arguing here those are not necessarily “technically better”.
In fact dribbling at high speed/acceleration also requires other types of technique which is equally very difficult to master, and I thought Ronaldo did pretty well at that.
In the end, it’s up to the players to decide which way work best for him during their younger development years. Who knows, maybe he knows he is much faster than other kids, so he developed his techniques in different ways (change of pace/direction, agility, quick feet, skill tricks/steps overs, shoulder movement, anticipating defenders movement etc) to work on his best advantage (speed/acceleration).
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Right, but I'm talking about the people who claimed he was holding us back last year, obviously this year he wasn't really up to it (though he'd probably still be better than weghorst)
You are exaggerating and using YouTube to back up your claims. I followed Ronaldo closely from his debut at United. And I'll repeat, his initial 3 seasons at United were about brainless dribbling and pointless tricks. He lost the ball more than beat his man, ran into blind alleys and made one wrong decision after another. He was even branded a "one trick pony" by the media.
06/07 was his outstanding season in this regard.
After that his dribbling was average. His dribbles per game averaged 3.3 pg in 09/10 and around 2 in the subsequent 4 seasons, around 1 in his last 3 seasons at Madrid. Although his goal output and he won much both individually and collectively.
Score goals?
Did you not see him for us earlier this season? The clown couldn't hit a donkey's arse with a banjo. I know it feels like years ago but we literally just saw him stink up the place for us and Portugal in the WC and people still question wheteher it was a mistake to let him go when he was consistently embarrasing himself and the club with his anticsTo sum up. Ronaldo was an "awful dribbler" with "no passing ability". His "shooting technique was just hit low and hard and pray" and he was "technically not great".
How did he accomplish so much? He heard SAF whispering "scoring is the king,".
How did he accomplish so much? He heard SAF whispering "scoring is the king,".
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I'm still talking about the comparison between Ronaldo last season and weghorst this season. Plenty of people were saying that we were better this season than last year purely because Ronaldo left, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Granted he still had more goal threat than weghorst this year, his winning goal against Everton away being more than weghorst has managedScore goals?
He was still decently fast when he joined Madrid. Not the freak of nature he was beforehand but enough to burn most defenders with. He was only 26 when he joined.
When he started seriously losing pace in his late 20s (and getting fat) the decline was pretty steep.
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I think the element of R9's game that suffered the most under his knee injury were his changes of directions and agility. His pace was still elite as you mentioned but he windled past defenders the same way any more. Still had some unreal technical feats for Madrid back then.
I think you are going too harsh and too extreme on his younger formative years here (03-06). Sure he is no R9 during his early years, but he was not really as “terrible” as you described here.
He is often the spark of the team, capable of creating something out of nothing, and was probably the most electrifying young player the league has ever seen. Even though he lacks end products and was at times frustrating to watch, especially when he was over doing his tricks for showboating purpose - I think we all get that, hence no one think he is world class at that age.
But I clearly remember him being widely regarded one of the best 3 young players in the world (alongside with Rooney and young Messi)
But you just can’t sum it up as - he is terrible in his early years. He isn’t terrible at all, just lack maturity/end products and not really comparable to R9 or even Mbappe at same young age.
But it's just your opinion.. man..
Yep. Gave up on replying here. Also his dribbling was mainly running down blind alleys and if you show YouTube videos to show otherwise it’s not acceptable.
poor man’s lewndowksi
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The second goal he scored was really good. Tight angle as well
That's an elite-level goal. I can see him doing that against Trent.
Yeah his technique striking the ball with either foot is still incredible. That was a razor sharp finish.