Ronaldo Luis Nazario de Lima is one of the great talents from Brazil who once mastered the world stage. Defending several classy clubs and performing perfectly with the Brazilian national team, many of his actions on the field became the nightmare of the opponent’s defense.
He is known as a player who has a fast run, charming dribbling balls, and also a very accurate kick. Although weak in heading the ball, his whole game was always amazing. Ronaldo can carry the ball alone from the middle and pass several opposing players. Even when he is under pressure, he can use his speed and expertise in processing the ball to escape the opponent’s defense. With a little space, he can create a goal.
Ronaldo began his professional career with Cruzeiro. After that, he flew to Europe to begin his glorious adventure by joining the Eredivisie club, PSV Eindhoven. In his first season, Ronaldo came out as the Dutch league’s top scorer with 30 goals. Despite his knee injury, Ronaldo continued to contribute 12 goals in 13 appearances for the Dutch giants. He also won the Dutch Cup trophy with PSV in 1996.
Since he was considered to have a special talent, FC Barcelona then asked for his hand. Sir Bobby Robson who was the manager of FC Barcelona at that time projected Alan Shearer as the main target, unfortunately, Blackburn Rovers did not allow Shearer to leave. Then the target was switched to Ronaldo to wear The number 9 uniform. At that time, PSV Eindhoven agreed to release Ronaldo with a transfer value of 12 million pounds or 211 billion rupiahs.
Il Fenomeno’s performance peaked at Barca when he spectacularly scored 47 goals in 49 appearances in all competitions.
Along with the Blaugrana, Ronaldo won the Winner Cup trophy, the Spanish Cup, and the Spanish Super Cup. Ronaldo also became the top scorer in the league with 34 goals in 37 appearances. However, the club management had never extended his contract so that Ronaldo was getting furious.
That was why Ronaldo then moved to the Serie A club, Inter Milan.
Brought in inter, Ronaldo became the most expensive player. Yet, his romance with La Beneamata did not end sweetly. There, he instead received the most bitter experience throughout his career.
It can be said that the fate of Inter is not as lucky as Barca. One of Ronaldo’s worst days occurred on November 21, 1999, while playing against Lecce. He had a knee injury that demanded him to have surgery.
Besides that, he needed to undergo rehabilitation for five months or about 140 days. Ronaldo returned to play on 12 April 2000, in the Coppa Italia final against Lazio. However, he only played for 7 minutes because his knee injury had relapsed.
Due to these two injuries, Ronaldo must be absent until the 2001/02 season or for 521 days.
However, despite his suffering, he successfully scored 25 goals and brought Inter to be the runner-up under Juventus. Besides, this Eredivisie top scorer in the 1994/95 period also succeeded in helping Luigi Simoni’s troops won the UEFA Cup and donated six goals in the event.
After recovering from injury, Ronaldo reappeared along with his four goals that brought Inter just one step away from embracing the scudetto after more than a decade. Unfortunately, Ronaldo did not meet his luck with Nerazzurri.
In the 2001/02 season’s final match, Inter were beaten 2-4 by Lazio and had to bury their desire to become the champion. The match itself eventually became Ronaldo’s farewell match with Inter since, in the following season, Ronaldo chose to move to Real Madrid.
So far, Ronaldo has played 99 times and successfully scored 59 goals for Inter, and in 2002 Ronaldo still managed to score seven goals in 14 matches. At that time, he changed his style of play to rely more on technique and instinctive scoring rather than speed.
Ronaldo’s style of play made him win the 2002 World Cup with Brazil, where he scored 8 goals and became the best player. He also won an individual title as the world’s best player of the year.
In Madrid, his greatness was fading away. He was often criticized by the public of Santiago Bernabeu as they claimed that Ronaldo was increasingly getting undisciplined and overweight. Besides, he often suffered from an injury, especially on his leg muscles. Finally, he moved to Milan in the 2006/07 season but his injury continuously occurred so that he decided to return to Brazil.
Despite all of them, no one knows what Ronaldo’s career would be like without the injury he got on November 21, 1999. For Ronaldo, his knee injury is the beginning of his melancholy story. An injury that started all of his injuries, from the torn knee ligaments back in 2000, shin fractures (tibia) in 2007, the broken kneecaps (patella) in 2008, and the broken hands in 2009.
Reviewing the story of Ronaldo’s injury, his former physiotherapist, Nilton Petrone admitted that he was very traumatized since the injury almost killed Ronaldo. He affirmed that Ronaldo was very vulnerable to injury. That was why he claimed that it was important to monitor the movements of this Brazilian Legend.
In total, he had been absent for 1082 days or about three years, with 123 matches he spent with Inter, AC Milan, and Corinthians.
