David Harding
brodierussell
Cain LynchRonaldo The Great!
May 13th 2008 05:44
Don’t get me wrong, though, I’m not unequivocally agreeing with the red faced Scot. I’m simply saying that in a one on one contest the class of 2007/8 would beat the, say, the 1996/7 champions. However, Ferguson has had better squads and better groups of players than this current bunch, which are, so United fans convince themselves, doused with unlimited potential.
Whilst there is no doubting the ability and influence of people like Ferdinand, Scholes, Rooney and, erm, Fletcher, it’s hard to imagine United winning the title without their Portugese maestro, Cristiano Ronaldo. I’m not saying United are a one man team, but it helps to have the world’s best player in your side.
United, during Ferguson’s reign, certainly have an impressive roll call of amazing talent, Robson, Keane, Hughes, Cole, van Nistelrooy, and, of course, the irrepressible Cantona, but I can’t remember a more aggressively attacking force than Ronaldo has become.
The lad is simply incredible.
In his first season at United I was one of his fiercest critics, labelling him a pointless show pony, who couldn’t hack it in the tough world of England’s Premier League, and I wasn’t the only one. Boy did he prove me and a lot of others wrong.
To be fair his game has changed. He is certainly less wasteful than he used to be and he has become bigger and stronger over time, but it is his directness and balance that make him the player he is today and such a fantastic spectacle to watch. To score 41 goals from 47 appearances in one season is astonishing in itself, but when you consider most of that time was spent in the midfield and not the forward line, the statistic becomes truly mind-blowing.
It’s not even that the opposition don’t know he’s coming. I can guarantee the biggest problem every manager in the Premier League, barring Fergie, has had to deal with is this year is ‘how to stop that boy Ronaldo’. They’ve been embarrassingly unsuccessful.
He’s grown up some too. From the sly little winker that caused Wayne Rooney to be sent off for England in the European Championship’s, he has matured into a decent, hard working professional. Sure he’s prone to a whinge, a little dive, and a ‘What me?’ look aimed at the referee every now then, but people, he plays for United, it’s probably written into his contract!
Some United fans will worship Ronaldo whilst sentimentally choosing Cantona as there ‘best ever player’, but I’m sure if they took a step back from the popped collar, the eccentric poetry, and enigmatic persona (which sometimes bordered on pantomime, by the way), they would see that Ronaldo is twice the player Eric the Great ever was.
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