Out of Battle - Ronaldo's Drama

Ronaldo's pain in 2000 when playing for Inter Milan.

The worse nightmare for a soccer player is being out of scene. This is specially true if you are injured. In that case there is absolutely nothing you can do to help your teamates, and that makes you feel cursed and powerless.

Just saying that because I have been playing always suffering some kind of, let's say, physical restriction. One knee is sorrow, my chins are bruised, and my muscles in pain. I just keeping on playing, tough. Just don't know if that is good or bad for my team.

The good (or bad) news are I am not the only one. Like myself, pretty much all soccer player in the world had done that before. We all did that at least a couple times in our soccer players life. What many of us never faced was a major surgery, or intermittent grave problems, like most of professional soccer players.

Summarizing I dare to say that our "amateur" pain is nothing comparable to the pain of professional players. In case of serious injuries they loose their job, their money and sometimes their life. Most of them with tens (or hundreds) of relatives and friends depending on their earnings, their body's health and their success on European soccer fields.

Ronaldo knows what I am talking about. At relatively young age his body asks for retirement. He had a great came back before, but this is exactly the problem, the kind of problem his knees suffer all the time are complex and they add exponentially to the odds that Ronaldo will disrupt his professional career.

His first surgery came earlier, on 1996, when he was just twenty years old and playing at the PSV in Holland. After that he had a seizure right before the 1998 World Cup Final against France. The French people celebrated their trophy in home, after a pious presentation of the team who were playing the best soccer until that moment. The picture above shows Ronaldo after breaking his right knee's tendon in April 12, 2000. Just last week he faced another drama, another major knee surgery, and at least 9 months out of play, if not retirement.

Ronaldo has nothing to prove, but I believe he still have much to do. Ronaldo is given to odd things, he was on the Simpsons, he played on the biggest soccer clubs on the planet, he is famous on all continents, and he is one of the first Nike's symbol soccer players.

Damn it Dude! He got a red card from Homer.

He is also the biggest scorer in the World Cup's history. He won every main soccer tournament in the Planet, besides a Libertadores and the Champions League. He won two World Cup titles, and he was three times elected Fifa's Best Player of the Year. So, there is no need to say that he is a champion.

He got to talk about retiring early last week, tough. As he said he wants to keep at least his dignity and two functional legs. Actually, Ronaldo fears having walking issues in the future, what is understandable after so many surgical interventions and problems.

Some people now link Ronaldo's knee issues with a problem that is hot in the American media now, the steroids scandal. The Brazilian Soccer Confederation just fired a doctor that said that his knees' problems have to do with steroids use. The doctor said that Ronaldo was injected with steroids during his time at the PSV Eindhoven in Holland.

I have no opinion about it, just that if you are so gifted like Ronaldo, and many of the baseball players involved in the steroids scandal, you have no need to use steroids. Besides that the trade off is clear: Slightly better years against highly short careers.

As many baseball players, Ronaldo's body transformation over the years was impressive. But now it seems that he paying the price for that (if really happened!).

All right, let's be positive and talk about good stuff. If Ronaldo cames back, we all will know that he is definitely shaped for success. I am crossing my fingers for that to happen, and I truly hope that he will keep shaking his index finger, like he does to celebrate his goals.

Does he used steroids? The finger says no, but Nike motto is: Just Do It!

Actually, many soccer players around the world are doing the same thing right now, to show him how much he is adored and admired. The idea came from Nike, Ronaldo's lifetime sponsor, but there is no way one can say that the players didn't like it, on the contrary they just loved it.

Me included. Due to my poor body condition I had a terrible game other day, and I also lost a penalty kick, first time ever in a game, if I recall correctly. Next time I hope I will be better and score the goals I lost. No doubt I will shake my index finger too.