By Will Sharp for These Football Times
There was a time when the greatest footballer on the planet was a skinny, precocious Brazilian teenager with an almighty gap between his two front incisors and a roguish glint in his eye. He wore an expression of fierce, stoic concentration, occasionally betrayed by an impudent toothy grin that said, ‘I’m not even a little sorry for leaving you on your arse, as I thundered past you, 0-60 in an instant, ball on a string — and I’m gonna do it again in t-minus three minutes because I’m completing my hat-trick whether you like it or not.’ He was absurdly swift, stronger than he had any right to be, and stuffed full of skill, audacity and invention. He was the Ferrari on a starting grid filled with Fiats. He was the bull in a world filled with china shops. He was the phenomenon.
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Essential and immeasurably formative as they were, the first two decades of Ronaldo’s life, not unlike the form by which he was most often seen by defenders, passed like a blur. His birth in Rio de Janeiro; his refusal to attend school in favour of more organic education on the streets of Bento Ribeiro; his first love, futsal; pulling up roots at his boyhood club, São Cristóvão, and earning a move to Cruzeiro; the five goals that dismantled Bahia and left Cafu speechless; his explosive arrival in the Netherlands and silly, silly numbers; superstardom.
It all led to the moment Ronaldo’s destiny converged under the gaze of La Sagrada Família, as he gave his signature to the Blaugranaand allowed Barcelona to fit him, the precious dynamo, into the heart of the machine they’d assembled with the purpose of conquering Europe. It was no easy task, procuring Ronaldo. Understandably, PSV Eindhoven were far from keen to part with the magical elixir that had breathed such electric ebullience into their team, into their lives. But, as only they seem to, Barcelona found a way.
It was actually Alan Shearer’s name that first fell from the lips of Barcelona head coach Bobby Robson when asked to identify his ideal signing, as the club narrowed in on obtaining a world-class goalscorer. But Robson was rebuffed by Blackburn Rovers manager Ray Harford, who told him Shearer wouldn’t be sold under any circ*mstances — only to sell him to Newcastle weeks later — and so Barça’s attention turned to the Brazilian.
As the story goes, in the summer of 1996, at the behest of the chiefs at PSV, the Brazilian Football Confederation had laid on extra security at the Miami hotel in which Ronaldo and many of his compatriots were staying on international duty. Ronaldo’s parent club had realised their grave error in agreeing for Barcelona to negotiate terms with their prized possession and had subsequently ordered for him to be closely guarded. Any and all attempts by clubs or agents to see him were to be brusquely repelled.
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But the wily Barcelona vice president, Joan Gaspart, was not to be so easily impeded and sought out a clandestine means of entry. Having accosted a member of the hotel’s waiting staff, Gaspart purportedly convinced the waiter to allow him to borrow his attire, and quickly acquired a silver tray and a bottle of Coca-Cola. Camouflaged under a cloak of false servility, the impromptu impersonator informed security that the Brazilian had requested a cold beverage to be brought to him and simply waltzed beyond them.
Upon breaching the inner sanctum, Gaspart knocked on his door and, greeted by the man himself, duly informed Ronaldo of his true identity before hurriedly laying out his club’s terms and plans. The outcome of this preposterous mission? “He signed the contract right there, on the bed,” recalled Gaspart. Barcelona had their man and thus began a most extraordinary 12 months.
During his two formative seasons in the Netherlands, despite being just a teenager, deposited thousands of miles from home and surrounded by foreign strangers uniquely unified by a growing sense of awe and anticipation that would overwhelm any ordinary human, Ronaldo had exceeded every expectation placed upon his tentative shoulders. In Eindhoven, he had thrived. The kind of thriving that forces those in attendance to get creative with their superlatives and expletives simply to do justice to the gawky Brazilian lad making a mockery of men twice his age. The kind of thriving that nets you 54 goals in 58 games, even with a dicky knee that hampers your second and final campaign in red and white. After shattering the world record transfer fee to prize him from PSV’s reluctant clutches, understandably, Barcelona expected big things. Ronaldo duly obliged.
A mischievous creation of Promethean origin, sculpted from the earth, blessed with fire in his belly and an innate knack for expeditious deception; Ronaldo was built for LaLiga. His first two appearances in the Blaugrana failed to produce his debut goal — a rare false start — but once the fuse was lit, fireworks promptly followed. Though backed by an exceptional array of talent — Barcelona’s arsenal stocked with the likes of Luís Figo, Luis Enrique, Iván de la Peña, Pep Guardiola and Hristo Stoichkov in support of their Brazilian marksman — Ronaldo continued to operate as though he were a one-man wrecking crew, solely tasked with dismantling every team in Spain. In just his first handful of appearances, Ronaldo would score goals of a quite remarkable vintage.
His first for the club, away to Racing, saw him control a lofted through-ball on his chest before sweeping it away from his marker, nudging it beyond an attempted interception, feigning to shoot, dragging the ball past the goalkeeper and slotting the ball into the unguarded net. At home toReal Sociedadin the following fixture, his first of two was slammed past the goalkeeper from the edge of the area, having loitered on the shoulder of the last defender before leaping forward and charging into the space. His brace was completed as he flicked the ball backwards before surging ahead, negotiating a neat one-two to slip past the La Real backline, once again faking to shoot, to leave the custodian embarrassed on the deck, walking the ball home like a discerning boyfriend.
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This scene, the final scene of so many of Ronaldo’s biweekly masterpieces, were often much the same; the Brazilian wheeling away, beaming, his arms outstretched like Christ the Redeemer, his opposing goalkeeper sat dumbfounded on the turf, shorts adorned with grass stains and the ball majestically twirling in the net behind him. The Seated Goalkeeper, like the 23rd Major Arcana in a Tarot deck, quickly became the calling card of an inimitable serial goalscorer.
A week beyond their dispatching of Real Sociedad, Barcelona travelled to La Romareda. There, Real Zaragoza learned the hard way that there was simply no stopping a fit and focussed Ronaldo. Scoring twice in a thrilling 5-3 victory, Ronaldo’s first goal saw him leave the hosts’ defence for dead before scampering clear of another goalkeeper coerced into a fatally premature dive and rolling the ball into the neglected net. His second was, well, the very same. Another rapid escape from the attentions of the defence, another feint, another goalkeeper sat attempting to conjure memories of his past lives to determine what he had done to deserve such routine ignominy in this one, and Ronaldo accompanying another ball into another empty goal. It was as though the Brazilian had discovered the cheat code to the game; week on week appearing ever more as though he’d uttered some ancient incantation capable of bringing the whole of the beautiful game under his spell and was subsequently doing with it precisely as he pleased.
Soon after, Barcelona journeyed west to Santiago de Compostela, the Galician capital, home to a cluster of prominent antiquities such as the city’s eponymous world-famous cathedral, its historic 12th-century church and 16th-century abbey, and the astounding goal regarded as the magnum opus of Ronaldo’s time wearing the Blaugrana.
In the 36th minute of the game, with the ball in Barcelona territory, Gheorghe Popescu attempts to flick it upfield towards a teammate, but clears it just a few yards to nobody in particular. Desperate not to allow the visitors to regain possession, two Compostela players rush toward the ball, unaware of one another, and meet like a pair of crash cymbals. Unsurprisingly, neither comes away with the ball. As a third man in white and sky blue endeavours to pick it up, Ronaldo suddenly appears and the ball is his. He swiftly received a kick at his legs, once, twice, thrice, by the villain of the piece, Compostela’s number 24, Saïd Chiba.
Wondering just how and why this belligerent bald brute won’t give it up, Chiba grabs a handful of his shirt. Then his shins are rattled again. Then a forearm meets the side of his face. A far more poignant insult than any word he could have paused to deliver, Ronaldo barely seems to notice. He traps theball for just a moment, to evade a sweeping leg he seemed to know was coming before even the defender deploying it, and then he’s off.
Surging through the gears, he eats up the yards towards goal. Compostela’s rearguard scramble to assume some kind of defensive formation but, as they do, Ronaldo slows for just a moment to feign inside, then out, then back in again, as the defender cursed with being closest to him almost turns himself inside-out trying to anticipate his next move. As the defenders converge, Ronaldo steals inside, right, left; two touches to execute the perfect shimmy, then, before a third retreating foe can apprehend him, Ronaldo suddenly sweeps the ball with his right foot, low, beyond the reach of the goalkeeper. Goal.
On the sidelines, having dutifully accepted the invitation to rise to their feet as Ronaldo’s emphatic run gathered momentum, the diverse reactions of the Barcelona staff are compelling in their own way. Assistant head coach José Mourinho gesticulates wildly, arms aloft, improvising and animated. His very antithesis, manager Bobby Robson, doesn’t seem to know how to react. His face reads shock. He searches for a reassuring pair of eyes to meet, as though in need of confirmation of what he has just witnessed. His hands impulsively return to his jacket pockets; they’re safe in there, the familiar feel of the silk — that’s nice, that’s normal, because God knows what he just witnessed wasn’t. In the stands there were a million and one interpretations of these celebrations and more. There is no guide on how to react to witnessing history in the making.
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Though his goal against Compostela might’ve been Ronaldo’s apogee, it was a diamond lying amidst a bed of sparkling jewels. There were goals against Valencia, the most emphatic, arousing of goals, scored in a hat-trick that brought the Camp Nou to its feet, as he hassled and hurried defenders, bustled and barged his way between men in an instant made to feel like boys and left impotent against his blend of raw pace and excessive power. There was the goal against Deportivo, where his latest foray forward was robustly curtailed by a stray leg, but, upon receiving no sympathy from the referee, his next move was to leap to his feet, reclaim the ball, burst forward and thunder his name onto another scoresheet before the defenders had even come to realise their latest efforts to subdue him had once again failed spectacularly. It was goals of this ilk that brought former Real Madrid forward Jorge Valdano to famously proclaim: “He’s not a man, he’s a herd.”
For every team foolish enough to raid forward against Ronaldo’s Barcelona and unfortunate enough to surrender possession en route, the counter they faced was like a stampede, whether Ronaldo had support in numbers or not. And, in his pomp, no player on Earth would finish their chances with the same finessed ruthlessness. He would acquire the ball, whether five yards from goal or 50, and, if he so wished, would demand a goalscoring opportunity. He would drag the ball by the scruff of the neck, rumbling down the runway at a pace uncomfortable for most, taking defenders one and all along for the ride, occasionally tossing them aside to be left in his wake, and, more often than not, he would score. Just as he did 47 times during his season with Barcelona: 47 goals in 49 games.
Ultimately, Ronaldo’s goals weren’t enough to capture the title. LaLiga was won by Fabio Capello’s Real Madrid, just two points ahead of their Catalan rivals, and fate burdened Barcelona with a lifetime in which to look back upon their loss away to Hércules, three games from the end — with Ronaldo incredibly away with Brazil at the Copa América — and wonder what might’ve been had they emerged victorious on that or any other single occasion where three points had evaded them. There were, though, more than just endless highlights of Ronaldo laying waste to opponents to remember the 1996-97 campaign for. There were the triumphs in the Copa del Rey, the Cup Winners’ Cup and the Supercopa de España; a treble of sorts, worthy of raising a Cava or three. Ronaldo, for his endeavours, was named FIFA’s World Player of the Year. Indeed, water remained wet. But in the summer of discontent that followed, as all who know Ronaldo know well, his relationship with his club soured and when, in the space of just 24 hours, Barcelona president Josep Lluís Núñez’s exclamation of “He’s ours for life!” turned to “It’s all over, Ronaldo is going”, the world knew the die had been cast. Barcelona’s considerable loss became Internazionale’s incalculable gain and Ó Fenómeno packed up and embarked for Italian shores, where he’d dazzle once more.
Like your favourite song that comes to an agonising end every time it threatens a third minute of running time, which would still feel short if it were three hours, and that you’ll simply never tire of hearing; like the gripping television series that calls it a day after just two perfect seasons, without a single misstep or anticlimactic episode to recall; like that indelible summer you enjoyed as a child, comprised of nothing but joyous days scored by juvenile laughter, warm nights bathed in orange sunlight that seemed destined to stretch on for eternity; Ronaldo’s time with Barca was maddeningly brief, but the magic of his spell belongs to its brevity. It was short but it was oh-so-sweet. It was as long as it could be, because nothing perfect lasts forever. It was a memory intricately crafted by a genius and slammed home by a force of nature.
(Art: Adi Sukumaran)
