so listen to this honald nazaru was quite simply superhuman if you watch him that is the only possible conclusion the human body is simply not prepared to withstand the sheer power Ronald was able to put down in every stride it was like a gift from God at the eyes of every fan and a curse to every doctor whoever had a look at his knees even more so those same doctors SED to believe that not all of that power was God given you see by 200 eight Ronaldo was 32 out of a contract and had spent
almost a year on the sidelines having ruptured the tendon that connected his kneecap to his shinbone rupturing it once would have been enough to end his career this was the fourth time it happened no one had ever seen that before and everyone assumed his career was over so horrified Bernardino Santi the retired anti-doping coordinator of the Brazilian Federation decided to reveal the truth to the public he told the press that upon Ronaldo's arrival in Europe at 17 believing his body was too weak to cope with the physicality of Dutch Football PSV had put the player
on steroids steroids that made his muscle incompatible to the bone structure of his knees Way Beyond what could be naturally achievable a revelation that ironically perfectly fit the timeline of a supposed growth spurt BSB had used to justify a sudden increase of 6 kg in Ronaldo's muscle mass if somehow you still find these claims hard to believe let me remind you that six years after that the sport would go through one of the largest anti-doping crackdowns in its history I'm talking dozens of players caught red-handed Pep Guardiola Edgar David cab Stam all receiving temporary bands
for precisely that same kind of substance when just a year earlier mesh Cohen a surgeon that had performed several of the most high-profile surgeries in Brazilian football at told the guardian every day I see other footballers increasing their muscle mass artificially at Ronaldo nature did not produce this body to have the weight it carries today compare Ronaldo at PSV and Ronaldo at inel those are two different people only his de remain the same it is a terrible anomaly to further add to the mystery by July of 1996 it had been 7 months since the first
time he had torn his kneecap tendon but strangely PSV still refused to let him play preferring to lose the title to Ajax rather than letting him on a pitch no matter how many times the player threatened to leave insisting that he had been fully recovered for months regardless that summer the Olympic Games took place and once under the Brazilian federation's umbrella there was nothing they could do after Brazil shockingly succumbed to Japan in The Opening match they were forced to unleash Ronaldo half an hour later he was already dribbling the keeper to score his first
the next match he put it in between the defender's legs before blasting it into the Nets single-handedly securing their place in the quarters where after going behind 2 to1 lat to the match they watched as Ronaldo came out of nowhere to score twice the second of which an absolute Masterpiece saving his team in under 9 minutes but even if unfortunately AOS and Cano would barely Edge them out in the semis Ronaldo would show up once more scoring and assisting against Portugal to secure the bronze medal making sure that everyone could see that at 19 years
old it was about to enter what is considered by Manny the highest peak ever achieved by a footballer in the words of Zlatan Ibrahim of each as if Ronaldo and Messi had been rolled up into one player but terribly also the only two injury-free seasons of his career still before getting into that let me address something everyone always asks me how I manage to dig up new stories about these players every week and the answer is that it isn't easy not at all you got to optimize everything the faster you go the more chances you
have of finding that next great plot twist and when it comes to that there's no bigger Game Changer than the oper 1 R2 browser say I got 100 tabs open no need to get lost we T traces it's like following breadcrumbs the darker the underscore the more recent a tab and with the tab Islands I can organize them in whatever categories I wish they can even be created automatically then once I found what I need if FS too much to take in I just hit control+ slash the AR command line pops up and it will
help me piece things together it can even take pictures in put them in context even generate new ones and finally once I'm ready to write I just go into split screen mode no need to keep multiple windows I can have my script on one Tab and the research on another and as I'm doing all of that I can still have fun with a pop out player I just got to over over the icon to control my music I can even move the player wherever I want even outside the window and you always got the coolest
themes that you can customize however you want so if you want to take your work to the next level just click the link in the description to download this browser now back to what I was saying by the time Ronaldo got back from the Olympic Games the bidding war that had ensued was so outrageous at PSV unwilling to let go of him at two security guards follow him wherever he went in hopes of stopping any back door negotiations and yet they still failed Barcelona's vice president Shawan gbar went as far as paying off a member
of the hotel staff to give him his uniform so that he could use it to sneak into Ronaldo's room and hand him a contract but even then having effectively forced PSV to negotiate they still ended up paying €1 15 million for the kid breaking the world transfer record and as Ronaldo was presented to the fans and bombarded with interviews there was one question that stuck out to me when asked what his biggest fear was his answer was injury an injured player is the saddest thing that is thankfully for now that would not be a problem
over the next 3 months right up to the closing of the bendor vote in Ronaldo would be involved in 24 goals in 17 matches for club and Country two goals against Atletico to lift the super Cup against compostella one of the greatest gos of all time and a hattrick against Valencia that had the fans waving white handkerchiefs as a standing ovation was simply not enough and so when the time arrived having played only 27 matches of senior football all year with everyone already insisting that it was impossible to watch him and not think he was
the greatest of all time Ronaldo was named FIFA World Player of the Year in fact when France football declared maash samur had won the balandor with one of the narrowest margins in history only three points more than Ronaldo an investigation quickly proved that at the very least the votes coming out of Northern Ireland had been miscounted bringing that margin down to a single point the lowest ever leading many to believe that having just allowed George wead to become the first non-european to win the award only a year before the votes had been manipulated in order
to maintain Europe's dominance over it regardless at that point Ronaldo had the world in his hand the media funned over him uncontrollably The Bard felt they were obligated to indulge his every wish and Bobby Robson felt he had no power over the kid eventually exploding and telling the Press I can't believe it every day he in the papers criticizing my tactics the boy 20 years old for Christ's sake it's diabolical but again what could he possibly do to in February Ronaldo left for the carnival against robson's wishes and sure he could have dropped him to
the bench but he didn't because over the next 21 matches he would only fail to score in four it was unmatched consistency the kind that allowed them to swiftly make their way to the final of the Cup winners cup beating PSG to the title as Ronaldo won and converted a penalty for the match's only goal but that doesn't mean Ronaldo couldn't do no wrong with three matches left to play in La Liga thanks to Ronaldo's unbelievable goalscoring run over the previous three months Barcelona had climbed from being nine points away from the top to now
needing just two to overtake real with only one four of their previous nine matches everyone believed their comeback was only a matter of time that was until Ronaldo left to join Brazil for the cop America then just days later as Barcelona shockingly lost to edles the team Bound for relegation ultimately wasting their greatest chance to take the title as Real Madrid too were humiliated by celed Vigo all that Ronaldo's backup Striker Juan Antonio py had to say was what can I do I'm just a football player he's from another world after that nothing else mattered
when it was time for the fans to name someon as their player of the Season even with the FIFA World Player of the Year among their ranks they overwhelmingly voted for Louis en instead though in all fairness I don't think Ronaldo cared much with 34 goals in 37 l leag of matches for get the Pichi award he went straight for the European golden boots 15 years would go by before another player was able to hit that Mark and after all the cop America clearly meant way more to him than any award ever could there no
one got even close to Brazil Ronaldo himself contributed to seven goals in just six matches as his team wrecked up close to four goals a game on their way to the title by the time they ended him the player of the tournament award he had brought his season stally up when un at themable 80 goal contributions in 66 matches and as everyone began wondering whether this 20-year-old could be football's greatest ever player Barcelona knew there was no problem he could bring them that would ever outweigh the benefit of having such a monster on their side
so after months trying to secure him with contract pre- agreements and all kinds of bureaucracy their president invited his agents over verbally agreed to sign a renewal after dinner and on his way to the restaurant announced to the Press Ronaldo is ours for life and that was his biggest mistake Midway through their meal one of the agents left pick up a phone call and on the other side was MIM morati president of Inter Milan who promised to trigger Ronaldo's release clause and outbeat Barcelona on any offers they could possibly make and so later that night
Ronaldo would walk out of the Barcelona offices without ever signing a contract as their president Meed the feat telling the Press it's all over Ronaldo is going in a matter of hours at just 20 years old he had become only the second ever player to break the world transfer record twice the other was Diego Armando marathon in Italy the mission was clear AC Milan had completely dominated the '90s six Champions League finals and five League titles so this signing was inter's biggest statement in a decade as if to say we may have not won the
league in seven years but the greatest player in the world still chose us now there was a team in the country that didn't fear in and thanks to that once again Ronaldo was adored like a God every time he scared his teammates would kneel down to shine his boots as Dior have said in training we would practically stop to watch him it was extraordinary by December Ronaldo was already on 14 goals for his new club but isut was the only Striker who could even dare compare himself to him in fact I just have to mention
this for the Glorious 45 minutes that to lined up aide each other in the world 11 ceremonial match well their team scored five Ronaldo assisted batistuta for three of those and bati assed Ronaldo for the other two for as long as I live watching those two play a full season together will be one of my biggest football dreams and thankfully at the Confederation cup we got something very similar to that as Ronaldo and Rari joined forces contributing to six goals in three matches on their way to the final where absurdly Brazil took a 6 nil
win with honald and Rari scoring three goals each matter of fact 12 of rari's goals were assisted by Ronaldo tried to find me another player who put up five goal contributions in an InterContinental final you can't and that's why just two days after that game Ronaldo had become the youngest ever to win the bondor at just 21 years of age from then on it was no longer Ronaldo as far as anyone cared his new name was Ill phenomenal for 16 match days he had kept in at the top of the league table and even once
they drop back to second he made sure to score 16 goals in 17 matches to bring them back up but it wasn't enough even worse he only fell short because in their match against leader Juventus the referee refused to call for a penalty as Juliano blatantly shoved Ronaldo Inside the Box no matter what the Sera Player of the Year wasn't going to let his season go by unrewarded as all of this went down Ronaldo recorded five goal contributions in a five matches that led inter to The wafa Cup Final as not even the mest of
Rush and pitches was able to stop him and once there he scored one of the greatest goals of his career to make sure that if in weren't going to come out of that season with a league title at least they'd be European Champions after watching that final even zadan had to say that there was no system or tactics that could stop him Ronaldo ran at 2,000 mph but unfortunately from their on out the world would be shown that there were still some things that could bring the phenomenon down and zadan would have front row seats
to all of it just two months later as Ronaldo got ready for the 1998 World Cup final the idea that he was invincible at riched alltime highs as he recorded seven goal contributions in the six matches that preceded It butas the French players pointlessly prepared to face him with Des Anda being caught by the cameras claiming that It's Magic by the time he reaches you you look down and poof the ball is gone little could they know that over in the Brazilian Camp edmundo had just found Ronaldo down on the floor choking in his own
tongue convulsing out of nowhere Brazil was announcing that Ronaldo would not be in the lineup but then he woke up and showed up to the team's cafeteria claiming that he wanted to play and to the shock of everyone after rushing to the hospital an hour before the match with the manager's approval he was there singing the National Anthem as one of his teammates kept telling everyone this guy isn't okay he's going to die on the pitch regardless in the end even if that didn't happen Brazil had been demoralized and demolished 3-0 by zidan's friends as
Ronaldo sleepwalked for the whole 90 minutes and as the millions of fans watching came up with one conspiracy theory after the other some say nikee contractually forced him onto the pitch others claimed the French poisoned his food what we all know is that no respectable doctor would have ever let him on the pitch and that soon things would get much much worse with Ronaldo seeming determined to put this whole Fiasco behind him there was a lot of Hope for his second season at in but well with his sponsor speaking at him like vultures and a
national team calling him up at any chance they had Ronaldo was already bound to waste away much of his season and then once the severe case of tendida sidelined him only a month in as his knee began to swell up once again the whole year went by in a Flash and by the end having been present for only 28 of inter's 54 matches the club collapsed to a place in the table still with a starm man putting on an absolute show at a cop America quite literally being involved in a goal in every single game
this time pairing up with rivalo to bring Brazil yet another trophy as the duo share the tournament's golden boots he had once again put himself in a position where regardless of any injury scares the club felt obligated to build their team around him they made him Captain they brought in several Mary signings from seedorf to Christian Viti Adrien M and Lan Blanc and yet it all blew up in their faces only seven matches in in what seemed like the most unremarkable play ever Ronaldo felt his knee buckle and ended up leaping off the pitch an
hour later the most damning of medical examinations had been completed Ronaldo had ruptured his pator tendon again look this was obviously horrible but the reality is that as tragic as it may have seemed it was nowhere near Rock Bottom 5 months later as inter went behind in their cop Italia final against League champions laio they decided to bring in Ronaldo who had been rushed back from injury and onto the bench as the club already predicted he could be their one chance at taking the trophy 6 minutes later they fell onto the ground and let out
one of the most terrifying screams ever heard on a football pitch in the words of their physiotherapist his knee exploded when we found his kneecap it was lodged all the way up by his thigh in the end aner lost the final regardless and Ronaldo was sent into the depths of their medical Department as the first specialist weather look Adam said that he'd be lucky if he ever managed to live a normal life again eventually a more optimistic surgeon estimated he could have him back on the pitch in 8 months but by that point he could
not even bend his knee Beyond 90° so instead a second surgery followed and after repeatedly enduring 9 hours of Rehabilitation therapy a day Ronaldo came back it had been almost 2 years since the original injury and even then after six Cameo appearances over the next three months he was a the two starts and on the second he went out with an hamstring injury the guy had been out for so long the rest of his body had began to atrophy still a month away from the end of the season he did come back in hopes of
making sure in held on to their place at the top of the league but I kid you not even with four goals in those last four matches Ronaldo ended up leaving the pitch in tears as he shoke the title on a final match day once it was time to announce the World Cup call up odds were Ronaldo would not make the list scol himself said there was 95% chance he wouldn't but as he got down to the last name with both Ronaldo and homaru out of it some kind of miracle happened and so with a
gigantic scar on his knee and no one willing to put their money on him honald went in and delivered one of the greatest World Cup performances in history before the tournament Brazil had been in such poor form the rumor was they were lucky to even be there but apparently Ronald was all he took to change that he scored four and assisted another in their three group stage matches then one more to make it past Belgium and after going out against England with some muscular fatigue stemming from those past two years he shaved off half of
his head as a way to get people's attention on something other than his injuries and proceeded to transcend every limits imaginable going into the semi-final at 60% Fitness having been told by his doctors not to shoot with inside of his foot as it could worsen his condition Ronaldo poked the ball with his toes to score the winning goal and once in the final he was the only one able to make it past the great Oliver KH scoring twice to finally redeem himself from the 98 Fiasco to make Brazil world's champions to unbelievably wi the bondor
again and to prove to anyone who may have doubted him that even at a massive disadvantage he was still phenomenal
