Reuters Soccer Blog

Farewell Ronaldo, one of the game’s greats

Ronaldo has just made the official announcement that he is to retire with immediate effect, bringing to an end one of the great soccer stories.

The 34-year-old Brazilian announced his decision at a news conference in Sao Paulo a few moments ago, after concluding that the battle for fitness — always a bruising struggle — was one he could no longer win.

I suspect a few people will react by shrugging their shoulders and saying they didn’t even know he was still playing but the end of the road for such a great player deserves marking properly, so here’s an appreciation by our own Brian Homewood, for many years our correpondent in Rio de Janeiro.

By Brian Homewood

Three times World Player of the Year, twice World Cup winner and overall topscorer in the tournament’s history – not a bad record for a player who suffered three serious knee injuries and was constantly fighting weight problems.

Ronaldo was often mocked for his extra kilos and not  even the country’s president could resist the temptation to have a dig.

During a video conference with the team on the eve of the 2006 World Cup, after Ronaldo had weighed in at 95 kilos for the training camp, then President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva asked: “And what about Ronaldo, is he fat or isn’t he?”

Klose closes in on a record he already shares

A glance at the stats shows Miroslav Klose has one more chance to equal or better the all-time record for World Cup goals when Germany play the third-place game against Uruguay but the truth is he has a strong claim to be joint top-scorer already.

According to FIFA, the record holder, out on his own, is the Brazilian striker Ronaldo, with 15 goals.

That, I’m afraid, is open to considerable doubt. A close look at the video of one of the goals he “scored” against Costa Rica in 2002 makes a persuasive case for it being an own-goal from Luis Marin.

One can only speculate as to why Ronaldo, at the time the most marketable footballer on the planet, would have been credited with a goal that helped him overtake Gerd Mueller, the West German striker who scored 14.

Klose’s four goals at this tournament so far have brought him level with Mueller — and with Ronaldo, if only FIFA would reconsider.

“I can tell you there is no chance of FIFA changing the way a goal was credited eight years ago,” FIFA spokesman Nicolas Maingot said at a media briefing on Thursday.

Klose could make it a moot point on Saturday if he bags a couple of goals against Uruguay, or returns in four years’ time to re-open his account, but even if he fails to score it would be hard to argue with him if he described himself as the World Cup’s joint top marksman already.

Libertadores Cup – domain of the Golden Oldies?

What more could Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos have in common with Juan Sebastian Veron later this year apart from being among the greatest players in South American football?

As Rex Gowar and Pedro Fonseca write, it is not new for South Americans to return home after brilliant careers in Europe and gain a new lease of life well into their 30s. Veron, though, touched new heights when he led Estudiantes to victory in the Libertadores Cup — South America’s Champions League —  in 2009.

Corinthians, with Ronaldo and now Roberto Carlos on board, are celebrating their centenary this year and they have set themselves the target of winning South American football’s top club prize for the first time. 

The other big clubs in the Sao Paulo region, Pele’s Santos in the 1960s, Sao Paulo and Palmeiras in the last two decades, have all won it. So have Cruzeiro from Belo Horizonte, Flamengo and Vasco da Gama from Rio de Janeiro and Gremio and Internacional from the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul.

It rankles with Corinthians that the Libertadores Cup has not embellished their trophy cabinet. They have not even reached the final, something a few lesser Brazilian sides like Sao Caetano and Atletico Paranaense have achieved.   Ronaldo, 33, has already had a year at Corinthians, having turned his back on Flamengo to join them after recovering from the knee injury that ended his European career at AC Milan.

He spearheaded them to victory in last year’s Paulista state championship and the Copa Brasil, the title that secured their place in this year’s Libertadores.

Corinthians, looking to the pair to emulate their great Real Madrid days together, signed Roberto Carlos from Turkey’s Fenerbahce this month to boost their chances.

Benzema to join Real, when will the spending end?

France striker Karim Benzema is joining Real Madrid from Olympique Lyon, the Ligue 1 club said on Wednesday on their website.

The 21-year-old Benzema will become Real’s third major signing under returning president Florentino Perez after Brazil’s Kaka and Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo.

When Perez was first in charge at the Bernabeu he set about signing one Galactico each close season. Now he is trying to buy them all in a month.

Where is he getting the money from during this global economic crisis? Furthermore, what damage is the spending spree doing to other clubs?

Manchester United were reportedly interested in Benzema to try to boost their forward line after Ronaldo’s departure.

We really are in unchartered territory here. Will Real still pursue Bayern Munich’s Franck Ribery too?

The Real Madrid Presidential Candidacy ‘Promisometer’

The campaign to be the next president of Real Madrid Football Club has finally kicked into gear with the claim from the little known Eduardo Garcia that, if elected on June 14, he will bring with him the Chelsea striker Didier Drogba.

Promising big-name signings has long been an easy way for candidates to drum up support for the presidency at Real and Barcelona, the two member-owned Spanish clubs, but ever since Florentino Perez came from nowhere to take the 2000 election what was once an entertaining sideshow has become the key battleground.

Perez, you may remember, outrageously delivered on a promise to sign Luis Figo from Barcelona in 2000 and the grandmaster is set to announce he is standing again, after resigning in 2006.

Garcia, the 29-year-old director of an IT consultancy, is considered a huge outsider for the position but he earned a bit of publicity with his claim that he could land Drogba, as well as Palmeiras attacking midfielder Keirrison and Racing Santander left back Ivan Marcano. (The fact the interview was hidden away on page 6 of sports daily AS shows how seriously his candidacy is being taken in the local media.)

The latest election campaign at Real was ushered in by the resignation of Ramon Calderon, who failed to deliver on his pre-election promises of bringing Kaka and Cesc Fabregas in 2006.

While agents rub their hands, clubs in Europe and South America will bracing themselves for a flurry of interest in their players, as candidates try to outdo each other in the rush to win the votes of club members.

The other candidates will have to work pretty hard to outdo Florentino.

Ronaldo’s medal nothing to get over-excited about

Ronaldo was not surprisingly delighted to lay hands on a winner’s medal so soon after returning from last year’s knee injury but even he probably knows deep down that it is not that much to get excited about.

Ronaldo’s performances for Corinthians have already started talk of a Brazil recall — he has not played for his country since the 2006 World Cup — and national team coach Dunga was in the crowd when Corinthians held Santos 1-1 to win the Paulista championship on Sunday.

But what exactly is the Paulista championship? The format of the Brazilian season often baffles outsiders and maybe this is a chance to put it into context.

For the last few years, the country has run a conventional league — usually known simply enough as the Brasileirao (literally the Big Brazilian) featuring 20 teams who play each other home and away in the conventional style.

It is preceded, however, by the regional championships, one for each of Brazils 27 states. These tournaments are based on politics rather than any footballing logic.

They have been around since early 1900s when a national championship was inviable but have survived the advent of air travel and all attempts to remove them.

Each state has its own federation who in turn choose the president of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF). Therefore, abolishing these tournaments would be electoral suicide for Ricardo Teixeiro, who has held the post since 1989.

What Messi thinks of Ronaldo

UEFA’s teams of the year feature is irresistible reading for lovers of footballing gossip, particularly in Spain and Argentina.

Javier Zanetti, Leo Messi and Kun Aguero have all published their best XIs of 2008 on uefa.com and there are a couple of conspicious absentees…

Aguero could find no place for his countryman Messi, despite his brilliant form over the year, while Messi himself left out… Cristiano Ronaldo.

Here’s Aguero’s team: Cech; Sagna, Ferdinand, Carvalho, Evra; Ronaldo, Xavi, Fabregas, Ribery; Del Piero, Ibrahimovic.

There’s a little comment on each and here’s what he says about Ibrahimovic: “He has the ability to destabilise opponents. Next to Ronaldo he is the best player in the world at the moment. He is the complete striker.”

Ouch! Isn’t he forgetting someone?

Is Ronaldo’s choice of Corinthians canny or cushy?

Ronaldo is back. Nearly 10 months after suffering a serious knee injury during a Serie A game for AC Milan, the third such misfortune in his career, he has agreed terms to join Corinthians, one of Brazil’s biggest and most volatile clubs.

Even before the injury, Ronaldo had been struggling amid speculation he was overweight but had lost his hunger for the game. He had not been picked by Brazil since his much-criticised performance at the 2006 World Cup and was eventually off-loaded to Milan from Real Madrid less than six months later.

Now, after nearly a year of what he has described as a sacrifice, plus a highly-damaging incident involving three transvestites in Rio de Janeiro, Ronaldo is set for a comeback at the age of 32.

Few believe that he can get anywhere near the player who used to power his way past defenders before finding the back of the net with uncanny accuracy. Ronaldo, however, has proved the doubters wrong in the past. (more…)

Time for Ronaldo to retire?

When you manage just 22 minutes in a charity friendly, it is usually a bad sign.

Brazilian Ronaldo was huffing and puffing after his short cameo in Morocco on Monday against a Zinedine Zidane XI and now he is seriously considering retirement.

“I don’t know if I will continue playing or retire. I still haven’t taken a decision,” he told Gazzetta dello Sport. “There is no rush. I could decide tomorrow or in a month. I really don’t know.”

The friendly was his comeback after a stop-start recovery from a second serious knee injury, which he sustained playing for AC Milan in February.

Even before he collapsed to the ground in agony, it was clear he was never going to come close to recapturing the sparkling form he showed at Barcelona, Inter Milan and occasionally Real Madrid.

Weight problems, injuries and question marks over his motivation have heralded the fall from grace. Milan’s PR machine was very clever in not making any public comment, and therefore not looking heartless, when they allowed his contract to run out in June with the world hardly taking notice.

Without a club, Ronaldo has turned down a solitary offer from midtable Serie A side Siena. Manchester City and Flemengo have been mentioned in the media as possible destinations but there seems little movement.

Rivaldo, Ronaldo and that last big pay cheque

If you had told Rivaldo a few years ago that he would end up playing in Uzbekistan, it is doubtful he would have believed you.

Playing in Greece with Olimpiakos and AEK Athens was already an unusual place for the ageing former World Cup winner to wind down his career. Gary Lineker went to Japan, David Beckham to the U.S. but the Brazilian signing for Uzbekistan’s Bunyodkor is something else.

At least Rivaldo has been totally open about his reason for going: Money. Uzbek clubs obviously have a lot of it. Kuruvchi managed to persuade Samuel Eto’o to go there last month to discuss a move before he ended up staying at Barcelona.

The Times has found another place where players who are probably past their best tend to head — Serie A. Ronaldinho and Andriy Shevchenko are on the list but the proud Italians will point out that AC Milan shipped out Rivaldo long ago.

If former Milan striker and fallen idol Ronaldo appears at Manchester City, the (English-based) Times may have to eat some humble pie.

Mark Meadows, Milan