Ronaldo’s World Cup story is a special one. He began, as a 17 year old, by making the squad of the winning Brazil side in 1994, but did not make an appearance. Over the next 4 years he established himself as the very best player in the world, and going into France 1998, he was the most feared striker on the planet.
He played well, without really imposing himself on the tournament, but still managed, with Rivaldo, to get Brazil to the final. The night before the final Ronaldo suffered a seizure and as a result was pulled out of the line up for Brazil’s final match against France. The story had not completely broke yet and rumours were flying around, one minute Ronaldo was playing, and the next he wasn’t even on the bench. Then, just minutes before Kick-off it was confirmed that Ronaldo would play.
It was to no avail however, as ZiZu fever captured Paris, but this was very much unfinished business for Ronaldo as far as world cup football was concerned. The exact details of the night before the final are still unsure, as even Ronaldo has hazy memories of the events, but it was to have an adverse effect on his reputation, and things changed for Ronaldo after that night.
The following four years for Ronaldo were perhaps his most difficult. A decent season in 98-99 was surrounded in suspicion over Ronaldo’s mental stability due to the events of that night in France. The following season was the start of Ronaldo’s real problems, with a serious knee injury in the back end of 1999, which put Ronaldo out for the best part of 3 seasons.
But come the end of the 2001-2002 season, Ronaldo had begun to play football matches again, and without a thought he was in the Brazil squad for the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan. A blown up Ronaldo had his critics and his supporters although adamant that Ronaldo was still Ronaldo, the Phenomenon, even they had doubts.
The fact is Ronaldo looked happy, donning a new hairstyle and was just ready to play football, and that is exactly what he did, game one, goal, game two, goal, game three, two goals. Brazil through with 9 points and Ronaldo back to his best, but could he now do it against the best in the next stage? Of course he could, 4 more goals from the remaining 4 games, including a brace in the final against a world beating Oliver Khan, and a world cup to boot. Ronaldo was once again on top of the world.
On top of the world? There was only one place where a player in that position went in 2002, straight off to Madrid to play for the Galacticos. The start of his career was hindered with minor injuries, but Ronaldo found his feet fairly quickly and raced away to legendary status.
The season before the World Cup, was of course a different season for Ronaldo, it always is. He had injuries throughout the season and had put on a lot of weight in between these injuries. But the fact is, he was still scoring goals and was still part of the Brazil set up, so in he went to the World Cup with the same expectation. The world cup wasn’t a complete success for Brazil and Ronaldo, he did however break the All-Time World Cup scoring record of Gerd Muller, putting himself into football history as one of the best.
Since then Ronaldo’s career has been ruined by injuries and lack of games, he had a decent spell at Milan, however after yet another injury he decided in the summer of 2008 to make a move back to Brazil, so that he could recover from injury without the pressures of European football.
His early performances for the Corinthians in Brazil have sparked fresh calls for him to be reinstated to the squad, now I’m not a hopeless dreamer, but with a World Cup in a year or so, I would dream of Ronaldo making yet another comeback. If he could make it back, if he could make it back as himself, as the Phenomenon, and complete his legacy on his grandest stage, well that would put him beyond one of football’s best, it would put him into football immortality.
king Ronaldo