Ronaldo

Ronaldo Luís Nazário de Lima, known in Italy as Il Fenomeno, was a Brazilian centre-forward who did his damage by running at people. He left Cruzeiro for PSV as a teenager, joined Barcelona and then Inter for world-record fees, and spent 2002 to 2007 at Real Madrid. He won two Ballon d'Or awards and took FIFA's World Player of the Year prize three times, the first at just 20. At his peak in the mid-1990s he was frighteningly quick, and he seemed even quicker with the ball at his feet. He would pick it up deep or wide, drop a shoulder, throw in a stepover or an elastico and simply carry it past people. His famous goal at Compostela in 1996 began in his own half and went past four opponents, and Bobby Robson rose from the bench clutching his head. Robson called him "the fastest thing I've ever seen running with the ball." Fabio Cannavaro was blunter: "He was unmarkable." He also had real upper-body strength and could hold off markers, and Alessandro Nesta called him "the hardest attacker I've ever had to face." Naturally right-footed, he finished comfortably with either foot, and he loved to beat goalkeepers with a feint: in the 1998 UEFA Cup final he put Lazio's keeper on the ground without touching the ball. He could create, too, adding assists, penalties and free kicks at Inter and setting up three goals on Brazil's run to the 1998 World Cup final. Then came the knees. A tendon in his right knee went in November 1999, and on his comeback in April 2000 it ruptured completely after six minutes. His physio blamed an unstable kneecap combined with his explosive changes of direction. He lost the best part of three years and came back heavier and less explosive, with weight doubts following him at Madrid and Milan. Brazil teammate Emerson said Ronaldo believed he could do in two days what took everyone else ten, and was usually right. Fabio Capello, who dropped him at Real, said: "The most difficult player to handle was the best I coached." That made 2002 remarkable. After missing all of qualifying, he scored eight goals at the World Cup, including both in the final against Germany, and took the Golden Boot as Brazil won a fifth title. Four years earlier he had suffered a convulsive fit hours before the final and drifted through a 3–0 defeat to France. At Madrid he won the league in his first season and was cheered by both sets of supporters after a hat-trick at Old Trafford. Judging him means choosing which Ronaldo you picture: the slim 20-year-old who ran through whole defences, or the heavier forward who retired in 2011 saying he had lost to his own body, yet still knew where the net was.