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[color=black]I’m writing this from my own point of view, contested or not, these are my thoughts on our boy and my take on as many areas of the boy’s game and so forth as I could think of.
Build
The first thing that strikes me about Ronaldo is his height and physique. For a player who is labelled a winger, he is mountain of a man. Wingers are usually wiry, frail, fragile players with the litheness of ballerinas or contortionists, most times wingers are the smallest players on the pitch and/or the lightest. The larger framed ‘wide’ men such as Gerrard, Beckham and Ribery tend not to be actual wingers, rather they are right or left midfielders who do not follow the manual your true winger reads from in that they rarely work a fullback along the touchline looking to beat him with pace and extremely tight ball control whereas a true winger wants to isolate a fullback and burn him for pace either getting to the by-line or cutting inside at an opportune moment to get an unexpected shot off. Ryan Giggs, Arjen Robben, Dennis Rommedhal etc, etc are true wingers in physique and intent.
Now take a look at Ronaldo. He has the physique of a centre forward. He’s about 6’2 and he has the wider upper body shape that completely belies the nominal position he starts for Manchester United in. There is one past winger in particular who he reminds me of and whose career path may well be matched by Ronaldo – Thierry Henry – both of them are quick, strong and have always looked to cut infield. ( I will detail Ronaldo’s actual position later.) The point being, that for your average fullback – who tends to be quite short and frail themselves – Ronaldo, by physique and power alone is an absolute nightmare for them to contain, this is without even factoring in his pace, just for sheer strength and the ability to ride shoulder-to-shoulder challenges, Ronaldo is in the top percentile for wingers.
Many of the past legendary wingers had a supreme balance and sense of when to switch their body weight, Ronaldo also has this and what it means for most fullbacks is that a one-on-one with him is useless. It will only be the supreme athletes or those expert fullbacks who will even have a handle on Ronaldo from the physique aspect of the game – you can’t guide someone who is bigger and stronger than you into touch with anything like the pre-requisite frequency required to not need help. This factor is overlooked quite a bit when people talk about why Ronaldo has to be double or even tripled teamed. I haven’t mentioned his skills either because as anyone who watches our reserves knows, a bigger, faster man technically gifted or not, has a significant advantage over the smaller man in any situation where he can isolate and then run at him. It is one of the banes of our reserve season and it takes a lot of work to negate the size of an opponent. Ronaldo wins a lot of fouls from his size alone.
Balance
When you watch a true winger who has quality one of the first things you will take in is that this player can go ‘both ways’ left or right in his effortless harassment of the fullback or winger he is facing. Twisting and turning their men to such an extent that you can see the moment when the opposing player has his brain-fart and just ‘lets’ the whirling dervish go by without so much as sticking out an apologetic foot to try and win the ball. This is an art in itself, an art that is in decline in the modern game as more kick-n-rushers frequent the wing spots.
In terms of balance in the modern game, there are only a few handfuls of players active at the very top level who have the balance that Ronaldo displays in every single game he plays. This factor gets lost amongst the trickery of his feet. The principles of good fullback player is to usher your man onto his weaker foot, most true wingers tend to be very one-footed, those who are two footed are at liberty to take the ball and their man on with either their left or their right foot whilst maintaining rhythm and stride pattern, by contrast a ‘one-footed’ wide man nudges the ball onward solely with his preferred foot and gives a skilled fullback the timing he needs to make tackles in between ball-nudges. Of course, at the very top end of the game dispossessing a predominantly one-footed winger is incredibly hard – Giggs in his prime moved the ball on with such speed and balance that timing the tackle was nigh-on impossible. But then you watch footage of a Best, Finney or Matthews and you see that tackling them is actually impossible because their balance is such that you cannot usher them into a weak position. A lot of defences are having this problem with Ronaldo, his balance is world class, and there are not many players active who can attain the level of balance he does whilst moving at top speed. This is another reason why he needs to be double-teamed most times he plays. The fact he can go ‘either way’ without any hesitance at all means that you’ll often see a man running with him along the wing and a man running down the inside channel fully aware that he can switch direction as he see fit.
That Trademark Move
You know the one? Where Ronaldo is moving at top speed, has his man/men on the back foot and just as they think he’s going to fly down the line, he kicks the ball with the inside heel of his outward leg and knocks the ball in-field into acres of space? By now this is Ronaldo’s unique trademark move. I’ve never seen another player use the move so frequently and so unerringly as Ronaldo. It’s the one move he lets the world and its mother know about because it is part of mentally conditioning opponents and sewing the seeds of doubt about the move – they know perfectly well it is coming the question is when and when you consider the speed he is moving at and the split-second an opponent has to decide whether to recompense their own balance to counter it, you should be able to understand why this move has become one of his bread and butters that will be etched into his entire career.
In many ways I see a lot of similarities with what Ronaldo does with his feet with combat-based sports or the martial arts. In both fields a well known knockout specialist with a fabled KO move will condition all and sundry to his trademark move. The idea follows exactly the same principles as Ronaldo’s Instep special – you condition them to the ‘if’ and ‘when’, yet keep the move in storage until the time is right to spring the trap. Joe Luis, The Brown Bomber, who was knocking out ‘A Bum a month’ was fabled for his devastating left hook, opponents would cower when Luis intimated he was about to unleash it, by conditioning opponents to it he frequently knocked them out with his other hand. Cro-cop, Mirko Filipović, is famed for his famous knockout left roundhouse kick – to such an extent that this is the first sentence in his Wikipedia entry: “Mirko Filipović is known for his left high roundhouse kick which he has used to knock out many of his opponents.” Via conditioning opponents, the bait is set, and it is in identical (yet non-violent) fashion that Ronaldo executes his move.
It is done at such pace that I can’t see a way to stop it directly, rather, an opponent would have to know it’s coming and time his collection of the ball ‘on the other side’ to collect it. The fact he always uses this move whilst he has his opponent on the back-foot means that only another player intervening from the inside can make a direct tackle. I have yet to see this move countered by any opponent he has faced, but one move, a game does not make
Pace[color:6ef6=black:6ef6]
This is one of the main attributes Ronaldo has right now. His much vaunted dribbling is incredibly over-rated as a whole, but as a sum of parts and factored in with his pace it becomes lethal.
The deception with Ronaldo’s actual pace without the ball comes from the fact he is so fast with the ball. No one active right now can carry the ball forward with the pace that Ronaldo can, this gives the illusion that he is much faster than he really is. Without a doubt Ronaldo is a very, very quick player, but that is more to do with a supreme acceleration and the ability to do most of his tricks at his top speed. There are actually quite a few FB’s in the league who can match Ronaldo directly for pace, Eboue, A.Cole, M.Richards can all certainly keep up with him stride for stride, but what none of them can do is execute tackles whilst moving at their top-speed, this also makes Ronaldo appear much quicker than he is – no player in the league can execute tackles at top speed, in every instance a defender has to slow down a little to time his tackle and get himself into the correct position to make a block, this is often the time when Ronaldo will blow past them and appear to be moving at incomparable speeds. In a way he is, as he can execute quite a lot of moves at his top speed, but you often see people surprised when a FB keeps up with Ron in a direct foot-race.
There is still only one fullback in the league I’d measure 50/50 against Ronaldo and that is Ashley Cole. The difference between what Ashley Cole has done in matching up with Ronaldo and what pacey FB’s who have had good games against him have done is that A.Cole has matched Ronaldo at International level where he is a wing-forward and has none of the defensive restrictions or the linearity put upon him that can happen in a 4-4-2. If Ronaldo simply has to run the line as a winger the chances he can be contained will rise three-fold. His pace can be negated by the right players, I feel this should be pointed out because Ron isn’t the bullet many people seem to think he is.
Another attribute Ronaldo has is his phenomenal burst of speed from a standing start or a jog. Over the first 10 metres he is one of the fastest players in the world without a doubt. Opposing players know this and you will rarely see men going towards him when he has the ball. Like a set of relay sprinters awaiting the baton-pass the opposing fullback can more often be seen jogging in the direction Ronaldo is going rather than trying to face him head-on. Most know that on their turn they have absolutely no chance of catching him and so the smarter players will rarely reduce themselves to a halt… unless they have no intention of letting Ronaldo by them any which way, readily accepting a card for their cynicism.
Build
The first thing that strikes me about Ronaldo is his height and physique. For a player who is labelled a winger, he is mountain of a man. Wingers are usually wiry, frail, fragile players with the litheness of ballerinas or contortionists, most times wingers are the smallest players on the pitch and/or the lightest. The larger framed ‘wide’ men such as Gerrard, Beckham and Ribery tend not to be actual wingers, rather they are right or left midfielders who do not follow the manual your true winger reads from in that they rarely work a fullback along the touchline looking to beat him with pace and extremely tight ball control whereas a true winger wants to isolate a fullback and burn him for pace either getting to the by-line or cutting inside at an opportune moment to get an unexpected shot off. Ryan Giggs, Arjen Robben, Dennis Rommedhal etc, etc are true wingers in physique and intent.
Now take a look at Ronaldo. He has the physique of a centre forward. He’s about 6’2 and he has the wider upper body shape that completely belies the nominal position he starts for Manchester United in. There is one past winger in particular who he reminds me of and whose career path may well be matched by Ronaldo – Thierry Henry – both of them are quick, strong and have always looked to cut infield. ( I will detail Ronaldo’s actual position later.) The point being, that for your average fullback – who tends to be quite short and frail themselves – Ronaldo, by physique and power alone is an absolute nightmare for them to contain, this is without even factoring in his pace, just for sheer strength and the ability to ride shoulder-to-shoulder challenges, Ronaldo is in the top percentile for wingers.
Many of the past legendary wingers had a supreme balance and sense of when to switch their body weight, Ronaldo also has this and what it means for most fullbacks is that a one-on-one with him is useless. It will only be the supreme athletes or those expert fullbacks who will even have a handle on Ronaldo from the physique aspect of the game – you can’t guide someone who is bigger and stronger than you into touch with anything like the pre-requisite frequency required to not need help. This factor is overlooked quite a bit when people talk about why Ronaldo has to be double or even tripled teamed. I haven’t mentioned his skills either because as anyone who watches our reserves knows, a bigger, faster man technically gifted or not, has a significant advantage over the smaller man in any situation where he can isolate and then run at him. It is one of the banes of our reserve season and it takes a lot of work to negate the size of an opponent. Ronaldo wins a lot of fouls from his size alone.
Balance
When you watch a true winger who has quality one of the first things you will take in is that this player can go ‘both ways’ left or right in his effortless harassment of the fullback or winger he is facing. Twisting and turning their men to such an extent that you can see the moment when the opposing player has his brain-fart and just ‘lets’ the whirling dervish go by without so much as sticking out an apologetic foot to try and win the ball. This is an art in itself, an art that is in decline in the modern game as more kick-n-rushers frequent the wing spots.
In terms of balance in the modern game, there are only a few handfuls of players active at the very top level who have the balance that Ronaldo displays in every single game he plays. This factor gets lost amongst the trickery of his feet. The principles of good fullback player is to usher your man onto his weaker foot, most true wingers tend to be very one-footed, those who are two footed are at liberty to take the ball and their man on with either their left or their right foot whilst maintaining rhythm and stride pattern, by contrast a ‘one-footed’ wide man nudges the ball onward solely with his preferred foot and gives a skilled fullback the timing he needs to make tackles in between ball-nudges. Of course, at the very top end of the game dispossessing a predominantly one-footed winger is incredibly hard – Giggs in his prime moved the ball on with such speed and balance that timing the tackle was nigh-on impossible. But then you watch footage of a Best, Finney or Matthews and you see that tackling them is actually impossible because their balance is such that you cannot usher them into a weak position. A lot of defences are having this problem with Ronaldo, his balance is world class, and there are not many players active who can attain the level of balance he does whilst moving at top speed. This is another reason why he needs to be double-teamed most times he plays. The fact he can go ‘either way’ without any hesitance at all means that you’ll often see a man running with him along the wing and a man running down the inside channel fully aware that he can switch direction as he see fit.
That Trademark Move
You know the one? Where Ronaldo is moving at top speed, has his man/men on the back foot and just as they think he’s going to fly down the line, he kicks the ball with the inside heel of his outward leg and knocks the ball in-field into acres of space? By now this is Ronaldo’s unique trademark move. I’ve never seen another player use the move so frequently and so unerringly as Ronaldo. It’s the one move he lets the world and its mother know about because it is part of mentally conditioning opponents and sewing the seeds of doubt about the move – they know perfectly well it is coming the question is when and when you consider the speed he is moving at and the split-second an opponent has to decide whether to recompense their own balance to counter it, you should be able to understand why this move has become one of his bread and butters that will be etched into his entire career.
In many ways I see a lot of similarities with what Ronaldo does with his feet with combat-based sports or the martial arts. In both fields a well known knockout specialist with a fabled KO move will condition all and sundry to his trademark move. The idea follows exactly the same principles as Ronaldo’s Instep special – you condition them to the ‘if’ and ‘when’, yet keep the move in storage until the time is right to spring the trap. Joe Luis, The Brown Bomber, who was knocking out ‘A Bum a month’ was fabled for his devastating left hook, opponents would cower when Luis intimated he was about to unleash it, by conditioning opponents to it he frequently knocked them out with his other hand. Cro-cop, Mirko Filipović, is famed for his famous knockout left roundhouse kick – to such an extent that this is the first sentence in his Wikipedia entry: “Mirko Filipović is known for his left high roundhouse kick which he has used to knock out many of his opponents.” Via conditioning opponents, the bait is set, and it is in identical (yet non-violent) fashion that Ronaldo executes his move.
It is done at such pace that I can’t see a way to stop it directly, rather, an opponent would have to know it’s coming and time his collection of the ball ‘on the other side’ to collect it. The fact he always uses this move whilst he has his opponent on the back-foot means that only another player intervening from the inside can make a direct tackle. I have yet to see this move countered by any opponent he has faced, but one move, a game does not make
Pace[color:6ef6=black:6ef6]
This is one of the main attributes Ronaldo has right now. His much vaunted dribbling is incredibly over-rated as a whole, but as a sum of parts and factored in with his pace it becomes lethal.
The deception with Ronaldo’s actual pace without the ball comes from the fact he is so fast with the ball. No one active right now can carry the ball forward with the pace that Ronaldo can, this gives the illusion that he is much faster than he really is. Without a doubt Ronaldo is a very, very quick player, but that is more to do with a supreme acceleration and the ability to do most of his tricks at his top speed. There are actually quite a few FB’s in the league who can match Ronaldo directly for pace, Eboue, A.Cole, M.Richards can all certainly keep up with him stride for stride, but what none of them can do is execute tackles whilst moving at their top-speed, this also makes Ronaldo appear much quicker than he is – no player in the league can execute tackles at top speed, in every instance a defender has to slow down a little to time his tackle and get himself into the correct position to make a block, this is often the time when Ronaldo will blow past them and appear to be moving at incomparable speeds. In a way he is, as he can execute quite a lot of moves at his top speed, but you often see people surprised when a FB keeps up with Ron in a direct foot-race.
There is still only one fullback in the league I’d measure 50/50 against Ronaldo and that is Ashley Cole. The difference between what Ashley Cole has done in matching up with Ronaldo and what pacey FB’s who have had good games against him have done is that A.Cole has matched Ronaldo at International level where he is a wing-forward and has none of the defensive restrictions or the linearity put upon him that can happen in a 4-4-2. If Ronaldo simply has to run the line as a winger the chances he can be contained will rise three-fold. His pace can be negated by the right players, I feel this should be pointed out because Ron isn’t the bullet many people seem to think he is.
Another attribute Ronaldo has is his phenomenal burst of speed from a standing start or a jog. Over the first 10 metres he is one of the fastest players in the world without a doubt. Opposing players know this and you will rarely see men going towards him when he has the ball. Like a set of relay sprinters awaiting the baton-pass the opposing fullback can more often be seen jogging in the direction Ronaldo is going rather than trying to face him head-on. Most know that on their turn they have absolutely no chance of catching him and so the smarter players will rarely reduce themselves to a halt… unless they have no intention of letting Ronaldo by them any which way, readily accepting a card for their cynicism.
