Cristiano Ronaldo-the most overrated player of all time?

FennecFox7 wrote:This is still stupid. Ronaldo is in his thirties and all of a sudden he's "magically" never good enough for us.

And now you're trying to say I told you so, basically comparing a prime CR with a broken, perma injured CR whos much older.

Every player scores alot when their team scores alot.. what the hell are you on about?

He's mediocre now but rewriting history seems to be GL's thing these days

he is "in his 30s?" he just turned 30. dont blame it on the age. after 30 attackers lose speed but they make it up by boosting other aspects of their game. so until 32 they are still in top form. the problem with cristiano is that he will refuse to be a passer. someone like messi will play well until his mid/late 30s because he will switch to attacking mid. but i dont see cristiano doing that.

every player scores a lot when their team scores a lot... this is exactly my point. it wasnt cristianos "magic" that inflated his goal count, it was the team. again, i never said he was not a lethal striker for us during those years, i just said it is foolish to say that he is a top 10 all time attacking player just because of his numbers.

I kind of agree with that... it's not like Ronaldo being here boosted our overall scoring totals as a team. He just demanded to eat a bigger piece of the existing pie... he didn't make the pie bigger.

I kind of disagree with you on that point. It's true, Ronaldo took the lion's share. But it's not like they rolled the dice and decided Ronaldo should take it. The guy made his presence felt with his terrific scoring ability. It's true that now he's no longer the player he once was, but from 2009-2014, he was an absolute monster.

Numbers are misleading, that's why I rarely ever use them as an argument. But I'm pretty sure only the best players of their generations can score 330+ goals in 6 seasons.

I believe now he's become a liability for us. But in his prime he was a beast. And I'm pretty sure nobody in the distant future will be able to replicate those insane numbers for Real Madrid no matter how many shots they have.

Overrated, sure. But you are making him out to be a scrub. His deficiencies have been well documented here, but by the sheer volume of goals he has scored he will go down as one of the greats. IMO, not legend status but indeed great. He and Messi have been quite a level above everyone else except for this past year.

The Demon of Carthage wrote:I kind of disagree with you on that point. It's true, Ronaldo took the lion's share. But it's not like they rolled the dice and decided Ronaldo should take it. The guy made his presence felt with his terrific scoring ability. It's true that now he's no longer the player he once was, but from 2009-2014, he was an absolute monster.

Numbers are misleading, that's why I rarely ever use them as an argument. But I'm pretty sure only the best players of their generations can score 330+ goals in 6 seasons.

I believe now he's become a liability for us. But in his prime he was a beast. And I'm pretty sure nobody in the distant future will be able to replicate those insane numbers for Real Madrid no matter how many shots they have.  

this is what am i taking about with hype on this forum, all of that is just..., cr style of playing has mostly been crap and shooting the ball, something he clearly demanded because he is a selfish pos, who wants all the credit for everything, but none of the blame, which has clearly worked perfectly, the onetime a manager ignored him and give the other players the go ahead, "he is declining" when he is only being exposed.

said it once and i will say it again one player playing to his potential while the rest suffer its bs, and something that marketing made look like it was him carrying the team when its clearly the other way around.

im sure cr fanboys missed the days of claiming, nobody but him can score for the team to have a chance. .

futbol_bill wrote:Overrated, sure. But you are making him out to be a scrub. His deficiencies have been well documented here, but by the sheer volume of goals he has scored he will go down as one of the greats. IMO, not legend status but indeed great. He and Messi have been quite a level above everyone else except for this past year.

To be honest, he never came close to challenging prime Messi. But he was the only one that gave the latter a run for his money.

I believe Ronaldo is the best of all the human footballers. Messi is something else. But the fact that he was able to compete neck and neck with one of the all-time greats for a very long time shows how great he is. If it wasn't for him, Messi would've won 8 Ballons d'Or by now.

The Demon of Carthage wrote:I kind of disagree with you on that point. It's true, Ronaldo took the lion's share. But it's not like they rolled the dice and decided Ronaldo should take it. The guy made his presence felt with his terrific scoring ability. It's true that now he's no longer the player he once was, but from 2009-2014, he was an absolute monster.

Numbers are misleading, that's why I rarely ever use them as an argument. But I'm pretty sure only the best players of their generations can score 330+ goals in 6 seasons.

I believe now he's become a liability for us. But in his prime he was a beast. And I'm pretty sure nobody in the distant future will be able to replicate those insane numbers for Real Madrid no matter how many shots they have.  

We didn't win much of anything with him... and the team didn't play better.  Those are the two biggest factors when i rate a player.  If the squad was inferior, you take that into consideration.  But Madrid always had an elite squad.  And to boot, in the most important games and the finals that we played, CR wasn't even among the best players in almost all of them.

So yeah, individual stats are all Ronaldo is about to me.... because there isn't much else to make a case for him.

sportsczy wrote:

The Demon of Carthage wrote:I kind of disagree with you on that point. It's true, Ronaldo took the lion's share. But it's not like they rolled the dice and decided Ronaldo should take it. The guy made his presence felt with his terrific scoring ability. It's true that now he's no longer the player he once was, but from 2009-2014, he was an absolute monster.

Numbers are misleading, that's why I rarely ever use them as an argument. But I'm pretty sure only the best players of their generations can score 330+ goals in 6 seasons.

I believe now he's become a liability for us. But in his prime he was a beast. And I'm pretty sure nobody in the distant future will be able to replicate those insane numbers for Real Madrid no matter how many shots they have.  

We didn't win much of anything with him... and the team didn't play better.  Those are the two biggest factors when i rate a player.  If the squad was inferior, you take that into consideration.  But Madrid always had an elite squad.  And to boot, in the most important games and the finals that we played, CR wasn't even among the best players in almost all of them.

So yeah, individual stats are all Ronaldo is about to me.... because there isn't much else to make a case for him.

We've had a good deal of scrub players since 2009, in my opinion. I don't know about you, but I was certainly never a fan of Albiol, Garay, Granero, Canales.. even Kaka was, in my opinion, more often a liability for us than anything else. Our strongest XI was fielded by Ancelotti in our double-winning season. I'm not saying that winning the double was testament to the quality of the squad, but he used the most balanced team we've had in a long time and ran them all dry, as opposed to resting and rotating with inferior players. Our defense and midfield have always had issues, and I'd argue that our attack has been less than optimal as well, in the absence of in-form Di Maria. Don't get me started about San Iker..

I do agree about your criticism towards C. ronaldo and his inability or tendency to not perform when it matters, though.

Yeah we've had scrubs here and there... but the squad as a whole has always been elite imo. Arbeloa wasn't the worse fullback in his day. Albiol never started unless there was injury. Same for Granero, Canales, etc.

Arbeloa-Pepe-Ramos-Marcelo has been the back 4 almost exclusively with cameos from Coentrao, Varane and Carvajal. Midfield has shuffled... it was Lass-Alonso, then Alonso-Khedira, then Modric-Alonso-Di Maria, etc. Attack has been 3 of Kaka, Benzema, Ozil, CR, Higuain and Di Maria. Iker the keeper.

You have to win more with that imo.... the years that killed me are the Tata years at Barca and Enrique last season. That fact that we haven't won 1 La Liga title in the past 3 years is embarrassing to me.

in cristiano's time we've never been a scrubish team. as sports said, none of those guys were starters. i can't even remember canales getting a game, maybe he did, not sure....i thought garay was a good center back btw. last season was extremely embarrassing- barcelona had so much problems off the pitch, got a new manager(who, despite the treble, i don't think is all that), about going through a fifa ban, and we still ended up empty handed....

this season so far has been very embarrassing as well; out of the cup for an intelligible player; barcelona ahead of us in the league without their best player even playing for like two months, and their transfer ban, and then losing 4 nil and getting dominated, once again without even their best player.....completely ridiculous  not to mention losing the title with vilanova (rip) going through all the things he was going through, and them having a substitute coach take over...even atleti besting us to a league title. we've had many things go our way but its like we just love throwing it away

Unless you experienced Heinze as your fullback, Woodgate as your CB and Gago as your CM... you haven't experienced scrubiness at Madrid

lol don't forget drenthe as your back up left back, pavon as hierro's heir, mahmoudu diarra and emerson in the double pivot. i liked mahmoudu as a dm, but in a double pivot with emerson? we're still trying to find out what capello was smoking at the time

The Demon of Carthage wrote:

futbol_bill wrote:Overrated, sure. But you are making him out to be a scrub. His deficiencies have been well documented here, but by the sheer volume of goals he has scored he will go down as one of the greats. IMO, not legend status but indeed great. He and Messi have been quite a level above everyone else except for this past year.

To be honest, he never came close to challenging prime Messi. But he was the only one that gave the latter a run for his money.

I believe Ronaldo is the best of all the human footballers. Messi is something else. But the fact that he was able to compete neck and neck with one of the all-time greats for a very long time shows how great he is. If it wasn't for him, Messi would've won 8 Ballons d'Or by now.

Well now your overrating Messi!! He is clearly the best player of the past decade, (I'll leave it there), but there were a couple of years in that time that the nod went to Ronaldo. Again I agree Ronaldo is overrated and has his flaws and is declining, But he is not a scrub.

The funny part is the beast that was Pavon was being protected by Roberto Carlos as his fullback.... and Beckham, Figo, Guti and Zidane as the ball recovery specialists that they are.  It was beautiful when we had the ball... but we never could get the ball unless the other team was shooting it at Iker or felt generous

i think the pavon and no defensive midfielder experiment was supposed to be florentino's way of going at hierro and makelele. just his freaking ego. imagine if that team won the league and ucl (which in january it looked like we would)....there would be people years after suggesting that hierro and makelele were overrated cos madrid won with a defensive partnership of helguera and pavon with no dm

Here's the thing that most of you refuse or choose not to acknowledge: Barça were simply better.

You shouldn't discredit Ronaldo just because we didn't win with him as much as one would've expected because we were simply unlucky to be in the same league with arguably the best team of the last decade. He dominated the PL back when it was the best league in the world and he won 3 PL titles out of a possible 5. Why didn't he suffer the same drought over there? Because the PL doesn't have a Barça.

No disrespect to anybody, but I'm pretty sure Real Madrid could've gone to any other league in the past 5 years and win at least, and I truly mean at least, two league titles.

Even in the CL, aside from Barça, which side of the European heavyweights managed to win the CL twice or more in the last 5 years? We have been very strong and elite in every sense of the word but, unlike other elite clubs, we're competing with another elite in the same league. A league that 90 points isn't enough to win it.

the 08/09 season, the 09/10 season i'd give that to barcelona...no question. the season when vilanova was coach and he had the health problems, last year and throwing that league title to atleti, i can't let those slide. same goes for this season when messi was out and somehow we embarrassed ourselves by dropping points, and losing that clasico. mind you, i'm not putting all that on cristiano. i blame the whole team; putting all that only on cristiano would imply he was playing with scrubs, which wasn't (isn't) the case. its a team problem as a whole. a mental team problem; when all those chances fall to us and we throw them away....changing coaches every time also doesn't help, cos that basically is like starting all over (even though we watched barcelona "start all over" and win the treble, and we just looked clueless)

Barca have won the CL two times since 2009... yet have taken 4 La Liga titles. To me, that shows they were the best 2 years out of the last 6 (before this season). So we had the opportunity to win 4 La Liga titles in the last 6 years yet only managed to get 1.

I would look at coaches faults (pelli re defense, mourinho re his antics, carlo re his burning out players and rafa re poor tactics) as to why we didn't get those liga trophies much more than looking at one player.

futbol_bill wrote:I would look at coaches faults (pelli re defense, mourinho re his antics, carlo re his burning out players and rafa re poor tactics) as to why we didn't get those liga trophies much more than looking at one player.

It's a combo for sure...  but that's what great players are supposed to do:  Compensate for the team's shortcomings.  Take Zidane for example.  France's managers were utterly pathetic post WC 1998.  I mean none of those guys were heard of again after they got the boot from the NT (Lemerre, Santini and Domenech).  But the team was very talented...  so Zidane became the de facto coach.  Whenever he didn't play, France would lose.  Whenever he played and was healthy, we were hunting for titles.

I think there's a difference between great players and transcendent ones.  Zidane was a transcendent player.  CR is merely a great one.

C. Ronaldo gets a lot of flak for not performing in crucial games, but what about the players that didn't carry the burden of the same expectations? Hardly anyone blamed Kaka for being invisible against Bayern. Instead, they blamed CR and Ramos for missing in the penalty shootout. Albiol and Gago were both outright liabilities in games that mattered, but apparently CR's poor performances held more weight. Canales hardly played because he kept getting injured, but I remember his poor performances far more clearly than his rare glimpses of brilliance. Albiol was a starter for a substantial period of time, after Pepe injured his knee. I'm sure you haven't forgotten his abysmal performance in El Clasico during that period of time.

Yeah, CR can be really underwhelming in important games, but I think fans in general like to blame him whenever things go wrong, even if the core of the issue lies elsewhere. He's always taken a lion's share of the blame. I'm one of those people who can't wait to see him get replaced by a player of comparable quality, but who will we blame for our failures once he leaves? Kroos and his sideways passes?

You could also argue that Zidane didn't do shit post 2003 for us. That's a period you could call mediocre. Many might not agree with me but I think that CR is a better player than Zidane. Don't take away anything from the Frenchman who was himself a fantastic footballer but the Portuguese has played at an outrageous level in the last years.

sportsczy wrote:

futbol_bill wrote:I would look at coaches faults (pelli re defense, mourinho re his antics, carlo re his burning out players and rafa re poor tactics) as to why we didn't get those liga trophies much more than looking at one player.

It's a combo for sure...  but that's what great players are supposed to do:  Compensate for the team's shortcomings.  Take Zidane for example.  France's managers were utterly pathetic post WC 1998.  I mean none of those guys were heard of again after they got the boot from the NT (Lemerre, Santini and Domenech).  But the team was very talented...  so Zidane became the de facto coach.  Whenever he didn't play, France would lose.  Whenever he played and was healthy, we were hunting for titles.

I think there's a difference between great players and transcendent ones.  Zidane was a transcendent player.  CR is merely a great one.

i think we are saying the same thing. Ronaldo is overrated, but he isn't a scrub as has been suggested in this thread. He isn't a legend of the game, but he is a great one.

When we are talking about Ronaldo's shortcomings, maybe it is best to take a look back. He came together with Kaka, the two of them were to be the new faces of the club. You can take a look back and surely he did become the face of this club! What about the other guy? That is what you call an overrated player!

signing Kaka, CR and Benzema with Higuain, Raul and RVN still on the team was sheer brilliance by Flo once again...

Kaka was pretty good until he injured his knee. Was never the same after that... He was much better in the big games than Ronaldo in that first year.

And lets not forget Robinho...  this kid really disappointed.  I thought he was going to be great.  He became a pawn in the mess of a political struggle that happened at the club and it ruined him eventually.