Cristiano Ronaldo: The Portuguese magician is under a spell
The World Cup campaign ended at an early stage for Portugal, as they found it difficult to go past the challenge put up by the Spanish side. Although, the Spanish are tipped as one of the favourites to win the World Cup, but still the show put up by the Portuguese was miserable.
In the group stages, they failed to beat the two of the better teams, i.e. Brazil and Ivory Coast. Although, they got an exceptional result against North Korea, beating them by 7-0, still they lacked the lustre against the big ones. These matches were drawn, after a woeful performance by the side. The real trouble for the team is that Cristiano Ronaldo, the super-star in the team, has failed to produce any kind of form in the tournament. Even in the match against North Korea, he got a lucky break as he scored only one goal of the match.
The question here is that the player, who plays like a world-beater for his clubs, has failed miserably for his National side. Ronaldo’s career at Manchester United is matchless in modern times, as he did superb for Sir Alex Ferguson. The Manchester United boss, Ferguson, has never let the ego of a player affect the morale of the team. Therefore, when the players like David Beckham and Rudd Van Nistelroy got out of their heads, Ferguson wasted no time in selling them to Real Madrid, despite their performances for the team. However, when Cristiano Ronaldo wanted to leave the club, Ferguson did his best to stop the transfer. It was inevitable in the end, because Real Madrid offered a record sum of 80 million pounds. One can very well imagine the qualities of such a player, who is highly demanded by the big clubs in the World.
However, Cristiano Ronaldo, the captain of the Portuguese side, has failed his National side. When Ronaldo was playing for Manchester United, he scored 42 goals in 49 matches in 2007-2008 Season, which was a record by any midfielder in English Premier League. Thus, Ronaldo led the team to their second Champions League title and the 17th League title. It must be kept in mind that during that season, Manchester United was not as good as many other teams in Europe. However, they had a world-class defence, Wayne Rooney and Ryan Giggs. The defence stopped the other teams from scoring, while Ronaldo scored goals at the other end. The rest of the playing eleven for United comprised of either mediocre players or players failing to find their form. Despite all these problems, Ronaldo took his team to glory; a feat that led him to win all the big awards that season. On the contrary, the Portuguese National side is still missing that kind of flare from this exceptional player. Although, Portugal in this World Cup could be a better team than the United in 2007-2008, but the problem is that Ronaldo is not the same for his side.
For his National side, Cristiano Ronaldo has scored only 23 goals in 76 matches. In addition, he scored only two goals in the World Cups and three in the Euro Cups, for Portugal. On the contrary, since 2006, Cristiano Ronaldo has scored 22 goals in only 40 appearances. There are, therefore, big contradictions as Ronaldo has failed in a Portugal shirt. Even, during the last season with Real Madrid, Ronaldo scored 33 goals in only 35 matches. The Portuguese fans, however, have not been able to see the magician to work wonders for them, and the Portuguese hopes for the World Cup have died once again.
Some people might argue that Ferguson is the best coach in the World, who has the ability to get the best out of any player. However, statistically Ronaldo did much better for Real Madrid, despite a trophy-less season. Ferguson had only one plan for Ronaldo; i.e. to tell all the players to feed the ball to him in the penalty area. He did score a lot many goals from free-kicks. Right now, he might be the best free-kick taker in the World, but his skills were missing during the World Cup, as he continued to hit the defensive walls.
No one can see any obvious reason in the Ronaldo’s failure. May be there is some kind of problem with his role in the team, but even that is not plausible, as the teams are always built around the super-stars. The only plausible reason can be that a spell has been casted on him, which turns him into a mediocre footballer, as soon as he puts on a maroon Portuguese shirt.
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