So… listen to this… Ronaldo Fenómeno might be the scariest player you could ever face but everyone acts like his career ended in 2006… when, even way past that point, it wasn’t any different, even once he looked like a retired player, like a dad on vacation, fat and old, playing with a knee that had been opened up and messed with 8 different times… he was still Ronaldo… the way he moved, it shouldn’t have been possible, at times he seemed more agile and faster than the 20 year olds around him and even if he wasn’t, it didn’t matter, because what made Ronaldo scary weren’t really his dribbles or his finishing, it was the fact that he was cold as ice, one of the smartest, most composed players to ever step on this planet. . .
It felt almost like he saw everything in slow motion… He could have weighed 200 kilos and he’d still find a way to make you look dumb… and everyone knew that. Every defender that faced him was pissing their pants, with his highlight reel flashing through their heads… you just don’t act right, when a monster stares you in the eyes… That's why in my opinion, his time at Corinthians was one of the most impressive stunts he ever pulled off… He proved the age old saying that “form is temporary, class is permanent”. .
. He made it clear that under those layers of fat tissue, the greatest predator this world had seen, laid dormant, eager for one final hunt and once the entire world rejected him, put him down, humiliated him, he showed them one final time that he still was the best… You see, people seem to have forgotten how harshly Ronaldo was treated because of his weight… By the time he left Real, everyone in Spain referred to him as “El Gordo” and at AC Milan, it didn’t get much better… Even Ancelotti doubted him… as he said it himself: “When Ronaldo arrived… He was over 100Kg… I told him he couldn’t play like that, so he told me: “What do you want me to do, score or run? ” The next game, he didn’t run, but he did score two goals”.
. . And I mean if you look at that season’s stats, they were kind of absurd… He averaged one goal contribution every 81 minutes in his first 3 months at the club, but then… It was one injury after the other and almost exactly one year after his arrival, he was already leaving… After all, by then he had already been out for over 100 days with a broken leg and then his knee went out again… it wasn’t like Milan needed him, they had Pato, Inzaghi and Gilardino… even Aubameyang was still hanging around… so they just terminated his contract… By the time he had “recovered” from the surgery, he was already 32 years old, it had been 3 years since he had last been called up for Brazil… and it had been over a year since he stepped on a pitch… To everyone’s eyes, it was over, Ronaldo had retired… no one expected him to make a comeback… but then… he was spotted training with his childhood club, Flamengo… and the fans couldn’t believe their eyes… 15 years later, Ronaldo was back in Brazil and he was right there on their training grounds, surely there was no chance Flamengo would let him escape… but then they got worried that he would never fully recover, so they delayed any negotiations more and more and more, he started getting upset and… one day, Corinthians called and he said yes, breaking the hearts of every Flamenguista… They couldn’t believe he had used their infrastructures for months, only to end up singing for one of their rivals… It was treason… but that wasn’t even the strangest part because… How the hell did Corinthians even manage to sign him?
The moment the story hit the news, even their own president said it was impossible… In fact, later he would claim that the moment someone suggested the idea to him, his reaction was to yell at them, saying “We can’t even pay the water bill and you’re telling me to sign Ronaldo? ! ” Not only had Corinthians just gotten promoted back to the top flight, but they were completely broke at the time… apparently because they were in business with the Russian mafia?
You see, 4 years earlier, one of their fans, a guy named Renato Duprat, presented the board with the opportunity to sign a millionaire contract with this company called MSI and they just took it… And sure, they signed Tevez and Mascherano and one year later they had won the league… But maybe, just maybe they should’ve thought about it twice, considering that Duprat was already known for sending a massive company into bankruptcy and when it comes to MSI, well… no one really understood where all the money came from… And one year later, it happened, MSI started being investigated by the police, their whole partnership succumbed, the money slowly disappeared and the charges began piling up: money laundering, tax evasion, racketeering… and one day they just left the country, leaving all of their debt behind for Corinthians to take care of… To which their president reacted by pretty much resigning and leaving them as well… all the way down in the second tier… owh… and when it comes to the origin of the money… Boris Berezovsky… the whole operation was just a way to launder dirty money for this Russian, let’s call him “a businessman”, with ties to the mafia, that was now pretty much exiled in the UK. It’s no wonder, their new president, Andrés Sanchez, didn’t think signing Ronaldo was possible either… but regardless after a bit of convincing he decided to take a shot in the dark and it worked… One day after sitting down in a hotel for hours, discussing all of the demands Ronaldo’s agent had made, with things looking worse and worse, he got up to go smoke a cigarette in the bathroom, asked Ronaldo to join him and once they were alone one-on-one… Ronaldo asked him “what do you wanna do? ” and he told him “I wanna go back home but the amount of money you’re asking is madness, you’re asking for all the sponsorships and deals… we just got out of the second tier, we don’t have all that”.
. . and Ronaldo told him: “Don’t worry, we don’t even need to decide on a salary, I just wanna play”.
. . That was it, even if the agent got a bit upset, it didn’t matter… Only a few days later, the signing was announced and the fans went berserk… looking at his presentation, you’d think the greatest of all time had arrived… maybe because he had… and his dream was simple: To get 30 goals, get called back up to the national team, to win the Libertadores and in the end, who knows, maybe take a shot at the Club World Cup… However, let’s just say, everyone else seemed to think this was overly optimistic because according to the press Ronaldo weighed 97 kilos at the time… which was actually optimistic as well, since Corinthians would confirm years later that he was at 115… and the club far from fully recovering from everything that had happened… The locker room at their training grounds was literally a shipping container… the players would often complain that they would be standing naked, looking at the shower head, waiting for the hot water to come… Ronaldo himself admitted that when he saw all that he called the president and told him: “Man, where have you brought me… It rains more inside of the locker room than outside of it”.
. . Yeah… Life wasn’t easy at the club, but having Ronaldo there motivated the player like never before… If you hear the stories of how they reacted to his signing, it is always complete disbelief, as Douglas said: “When they told me, I was like “what Ronaldo?
”. . .
then I was like “The Ronaldo? ”. .
. When he came into the locker room, we all sat still like little school boys, the hell was I supposed to say: “You’re welcome”? !
”. . .
Regardless, for two months Ronaldo stayed away from the stadiums, only training with the goal of getting back up to speed, but still every news outlet found a way of posting embarrassing videos of him being left behind as the team ran around the pitch, leading the rival fans to make a mockery out of his signing… or at least, they did, until he debuted… The man was supposed to be slowly easing his way back onto the pitch… but he quickly began looking more dangerous than anyone could imagine and after only 50 minutes of gametime, he scored his first goal… and as he ran towards the fans to celebrate, they all went so wild, the fence collapsed… However, Ronaldo wasn’t as impressed as everyone else, as he said: “After the game, I had the president and everyone coming up to me, all euphoric, I said: “What are you celebrating for, we haven’t won anything, there’s still a lot to do”. . .
and then… he did it… He changed Corinthians forever… It was 8 goals in his first 10 matches… With that first goal, he tied the match, the game after he scored the winner, two weeks later, he scored twice in 2 goal draw… but only then did things get serious… It was time for the Paulista Championship semi finals… However, things didn't go well… Not only was he wasteful, but he put in a tackle that could have easily gotten him a red card… but thank god the referee settled for a yellow, because the world needed to see that second leg performance… After this match, the vice president of São Paulo had the bright idea of repeatedly referring to Ronaldo as an ex-football player which… let’s just say it might have angered him a little bit considering that in the second leg, he created the chance for the first goal and scored the second, knocking out São Paulo and then making sure to head straight to the post match interview to leave a message: “There’s someone talking shit, some idiot. I wanna see if that guy will come out of his cave talking funny now”. .
. and let’s just say he didn’t stop there… then came the final vs Santos, Neymar’s Santos… 10 minutes in, Corinthians was already in front, but Santos was on top of them, getting closer and closer… which was exactly when Ronaldo made it two… but it only made things worse… It got so bad that Corinthians left Ronaldo alone up front and with 30 minutes left, their defensive wall broke apart and Santos finally scored… and at that point, that 2 to 1 meant nothing, Corinthians looked like a team about to crumble… which, again, was precisely when Ronaldo, with Pelé watching from above… showed up with simply one of the most stunning goals ever scored… proving that he too was a king and taking the title after 6 years… With one tournament, he had already proven to the world that he was still capable of stopping the hearts of rival fans and the world… noticed… the Gazzetta Dello Sport said that: “Ronaldo became a Phenomenon again”. .
. but nothing proved that there had been a gigantic shift in public opinion like the huge campaign that was started to get Fenómeno back in the national team for the 2010 world cup… Even Romário came out saying that “He still is and will forever be one of the greatest in the world, because he is a natural born goalscorer”. .
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Unfortunately, the national team coach didn’t seem too convinced… However, that didn’t mean Ronaldo stopped going at it, because the last 16 round of the Copa Brazil was just 2 weeks away and whoever won that tournament would get a golden ticket to the Copa Libertadores… So once they lost the first leg, Ronaldo made sure to score twice in the second to pull off the comeback and I mean, just look at how he pulled off the penalty for that second goal… unbelievable… Still, none of that compared to what would happen one month later, when they reached the final and Ronaldo truly turned back the clock, going on an incredible run, pulling it back and smacking it by the near post, scoring the goal would earned them the title of Brazilian Champions only 8 months after they had played their last 2nd division match… and above all, getting them to the Libertadores… meaning that for the rest of the season, the only objective left on the table was scoring those 30 goals… and if he was already on 11 for the season, then, in the very next match, he jump started his championship campaign with a hat trick against Fluminense and it’s not just any hat trick, I mean watch this… First he opened the scoreboard with a classic striker’s goal… then he started the play that led to the second goal of the match… And for his own second goal, he again went on a run, pulled it back and sat down two defenders before sending it into the near post… it was absurd… but still not his best… He saved that one for the 86th minute, when Fluminense was threatening to tie the match, just blasting a volley from outside the box… Three matches later, he had already scored another three, taking his tally up to 17 goals while we were still 4 months away from the end of the season… but unfortunately one week later… he fractured his right hand and was left out for 2 of those 4 months… And even though he would still be pulling off crazy goals once he made it back… he would finish the season with only 23… Regardless, you know what they say… New year, new life… and with Corinthians getting money left and right from sponsors who needed Ronaldo wearing them on his shirt, Roberto Carlos coming to join the team soon and a new stadium in construction… all while celebrating their 100th anniversary… it had everything to go right…and when Ronaldo started off his season by dribbling the keeper to score his first goal, everyone’s hopes hit all time highs… but then Ronaldo went down again with a calf injury… and though that wouldn’t be enough to knock him down… then the injuries just kept coming and as much as he tried his hardest to persevere, doing his best to make sure that Corinthians would, at least, stay afloat at the Libertadores… somehow still managing to score the winners both home and away against Cerro Porteno… then they faced Flamengo and though he would score to put them in front… they weren’t able to hold onto the lead and ended up going out on away goals… just like that, the fable “Libertadores project” was dead… and to make it all worse, then the national team coach confirmed that Ronaldo would not be at the world cup… Those months crushed him, the injuries worsened and the medical team decided to pull him from the team before it all crashed and burned… From May to October, he only made two appearances… It would have been incredibly easy to just call it a day and hang up the boots at that point, but thankfully for him, in his absence, his teammates had managed to keep the team on top and against all odds, with few matches left in the season, they were still fighting for a spot in the next year’s Libertadores, so Ronaldo came back and was extremely decisive once again, getting 4 goals and an assist in the final 6 matches of the season, securing two draws and a win against Cruzeiro, quickly getting them an extra 5 points and locking that 3rd place finish for good… Suddenly, he had another reason to keep going… As his third year started, the rainy days were over, and though Ronaldo, himself, admitted that “even getting through pre season is a huge challenge for me”, he was even seen racing his teammates in training, he seemed more fit than we had seen him in a while but against all odds, only 4 matches into the season, Corinthians was knocked out of the Libertadores in a gigantic upset against Deportivo Tolima and on Valentine’s day, to everyone’s surprise, Ronaldo called up for a press conference and publicly apologized for their failure at the Libertadores… you could see how much it meant to him, he was literally choking back tears and then came the worst part: “Four years ago, in Milan, I found out I was suffering from a disease called hypothyroidism, it slowed down my metabolism… The only way to combat it was a medication that is considered doping if you’re a football player… So I chose not to take it… a lot of people should feel bad about the things they said about my weight… In recent days, I’ve cried like a baby, I’ve finally lost the fight against my own body… The ones who are close to me know the truth, I can’t even walk up the stairs without feeling pain… I gave my life to football, I sacrificed everything, I have no regrets… but now I must go”. .
. As he left, even though across those 3 years he had only managed to give the club a few good months… the president hailed him as “the biggest the club ever had”. .
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