Who's the most overrated player in the world?
I think it's Cristiano Ronaldo, and unlike most haters, I will give a couple of reasons for it, and attempt to dispel some common myths and misconceptions that often get associated with the striker.
1. "He's a winger, and that's why his scoring 42 goals was so amazing."
He was not a winger that season. Look at the statistics: Ronaldo had by far the most shots of anyone that season, more than any other striker. And if you look at where he spent the majority of his time, it was in the striker role, he and rooney were the strikers on that team.
Notice how much his scoring went down when another striker joined the team, Berbatov, and how low it was when Nistelrooy was there,. Notice that his goal tally when there was another striker on the team was roughly the same! Coincidence? I think not.
2. "He's a great scorer."
Not true; he's a great free-kick taker and header of the ball, but nothing more.
Notice how few of those goals required vast amounts of skill: the free-kicks and some of the headers. The majority of the time, Ronaldo was given perfect, sublime passes and had to do very little. And for those that will say that his positioning is what's genius, I offer the following reply: perhaps. But notice that most of the time Ronaldo had to move very little to score, or when he was making runs, they were fairly obvious ones.
Ronaldo may be very good at positioning, I'm not the god of football knowledge, but if it is it's one of the few things he's good at, because look at how many shots he takes! That is not a great percentage.
Ronaldo can only score goals when his whole team is on fire; he can't create for himself. Proof: look at him when his team plays tough competition; he routinely failed to score against top teams in the premier league and even when Manchester United won the Champions league he was shut down by Barcelona.
Ah, you say, but didn't he score in the final against chelsea? Yes, OFF A perfect PASS TO THE HEAD! See what I mean? A great striker can create goals for himself. You want to see a Ronaldo whose a great striker? Look at the first Ronaldo's 1996/1997 season every goal, also on youtube. Now compare the two videos of the Ronaldos and tell me which one created goals for himself.
3. "He's a great dribbler."
Debatable. While there is no doubt that ronaldo has some of the quickest feet football has ever seen, and great pace, fantastic dribbling is about what you do after you beat your man. Ronaldo doesn't score after he beats a man (as you now know from watching his goalscoring video) and he almost never crosses it either.
Overwhelmingly, what he does after he beats a man is PASS BACK! The reason for this is that Ronaldo likes to take his time facing a man one on one, and so by the time he beats him the defenders have covered everybody and his only option is to pass back. Also, notice, how reluctant he is to take somebody on unless he's on the wing. The reason for this is that he seems to be incapable of taking on multiple defenders. He used to do it sometimes in his first years at United but since 2006 just stopped.
So in conclusion, dribbling is about what you do after you beat your man and while Ronaldo may have many highlight videos, they never show what he does after he beats one defender because in the vast majority of cases he passes back, loses the ball, or falls down like my three-year-old sister. Again, if you want to see what a REAL great dribbler does watch a video of the first ronaldo, ronaldinho, thierry henry, or zidane, they become alive after they beat their man.
4."Well, Ronaldo still scores a lot of goals for a winger."
True! I am not saying Ronaldo is a terrible player! Right now, minus the 42 goal season, (which I explained he played as an okay striker in) ronaldo is scoring about as much as figo did with fewer assists. I think that Ronaldo may one day be as great as figo, but unless he improves on the things mentioned here, no better, and certainly not the greatest player in the world.
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