Cristiano or Brazilian Ronaldo

Ronaldo has won his 4th Ballon D'or but is he the greatest Ronaldo to ever grace a football field?

 

Yeh Paul it's whoever you think was the greatest at their absolute best

 

Cristiano for me.

All I can remember of the Brazil one was him bursting through defences. Incredible player, of course, just think CR has more to his game.

 

Easily Cristiano Ronaldo, he's been incredible wherever he's gone and his consistency is astounding.

 

Both are up there in top 20 players of all time but I would have Cristiano quite a bit higher. they guy is one best of all time just an amazing athlete and footballer.

 

I can't believe what I'm reading in here

 

Ronaldo is imo one of the most naturally gifted footballers of all time , ruined by obvious injuries. You can't look past Cristiano though at this stage, he's took himself to the absolute pinnacle...

376 goals , 105 assists in 365 games for Real Madrid , mind boggling figure...

 

Brazilian Ronaldo, pre-injury problems, was really something else

 

Cristiano should have stuck to the fancy tricks and flicks, haven't liked him ever since he's became an android like athlete with a honking team ethic.

 

This.

 

Cristiano winning the Ballon d'Or this year is an injustice, I thought it was an individual award? Messi has more goals & assists this year and has been a better player in the bigger games.

Brazilian Ronaldo for me.

 

Hard to compare. Cristiano is probably the most one dimensional great player of all time, he scores a lot of goals but his overall play is poor(even just by normal run of the mill world class player levels like Ribery, Hazard and that they do a lot more work, create more, they see more of the ball, just overall affect games more often) and probably 30% of the games he plays he's ineffective and doesn't really do anything in them if he's not scoring as he tends to go 3/4 games without scoring then he'll batter 4/5 into Malmo or Osasuna then go 2/3 games without a goal the score 2/3 against Espanyol.

Brazilian Ronaldo was a more consistent performer, where he'd create chances every game, he'd link play with midfield all the time, he could beat players and most games he played he done a lot.

It's also hard to say how either would have done in each others era too. Cristiano is a great goalscorer but would he have scored as many goals if he played from 1990-2007, you'd think he'd probably not have managed 40 in a season as nobody really got more than 30 then as football was more defensively solid. Brazilian Ronaldo was a good goalscorer in his era and it's easier to imagine him regularly scoring 50 a season if he played from say 2002-now than it is to think of Cristiano scoring 40 a season in the 90s and early 2000s.

 

Why is this close is it because iam over 30 "fat" Ronaldo before his sorta meltdown at France 98 was unbelievable cr7 is also a *

 

Aye it's interesting that Cristiano really gets away with not doing a lot and just scoring goals and can be seen as the best player around winning ballon d'ors but imagine Messi for example, just stopped roaming the pitch, beating players, dictating the play, creating chances and just stayed around the box and started scoring an extra 10 goals a season so say 55-60 a season. People would probably think "Messi is * now" yet thats what Ronaldos been doing for years, he stopped being a winger in favour of just trying to score all the time.

He's the only player I can actually think of who has done that, stopped performing in other areas to just concentrate on the one thing. When Messi went from scoring 15/20 goals a season to getting 30/40 then up to 50 his style of play never really changed, same with Suarez from Liverpool to now or Robben from Chelsea/Real scoring 10/15 a season to getting 25/30 at Bayern or Ribery or Lewandowski going from a 20 to 40 a season goalscorer, Aubameyang, Reus.

Pretty much every players stye of play stays the same and just gets a bit better as they transition from good to great players. Ronaldo's normal play just dropped off a cliff, in terms of being a winger he just stopped doing it.

 

This was the real Ronaldo at his best for me, his time at Barca.



Some of his other best goals

 

In terms of all round play Cristiano Ronaldo isn't anywhere near the best player in the world. Not even close.

 

The thing is though, he could be. If he didnt mind dropping his goal tally to 25-30 a season, he could probably return to being the best winger in the world or atleast close to Neymar. Still has the pace, the quick footwork, ability to cross a ball fitness to get up and down the park and would still score a lot of goals, probably the most out of all other wide players.

He'd likely still look a level above players like Reus, Hazard and whoever as an effective wide player.

So it's not like he's not capable or not got the tools, he just doesn't do it, he's just too obsessed with scoring goals in a bad way too like he wants every freekick even though at Real Bale, James and probably even Kroos and Modric are better takers but he'd rather take them all and add that extra 2/3 goals a season to his tally than let others take them and maybe score an extra 2/3 goals from them as a team.

 

Consistency > short term brilliance.