Even if titles might say otherwise (dunno maybe they are more or less on the same level, think the Frenchie has more on his cabinet), a freak of nature like R9 is a more rare specimen than Zizou as great as Zizou was and would allways be. Leaving this aside, they are both more role oriented players than the upper echelon of all around/wild card geniuses that has it al...so more than being faced against each other, we were lucky to have them both playing for each other as it should be.

 

Define to me what greatness means to you, and I will tell you which of them is the greater player for you.

For me, Ronaldo. You see very few athletes like him in your lifetime across all sports, and he was perhaps the most perfect specimen there had ever been in football at his peak.

 

both were overrated but Zidane more so

 

Yeah, apparently Zidane wouldn't turn up for Perugia and Getafe type away games and the like.

 

Zidane was my third favourite player of all time.

But have to go with Ronaldo, my jaw was on the floor every time I saw peak Ronaldo play. That level of athleticism and skill combined was and still is unheard of. Just ridicolous. He played with such casual indifference while destroying entire defences.


But sadly that indifference also painted his whole career to not be as dominant as he should been, he had it all except mentally be super hungry champion (he was content with just individal numbers, more busy partying and enjoying ze good life), plus the injuries.

 

Zidane by a mile in terms of impact on a team.

 

Just to push back a little against the consensus, it's clear most people preffer peak R9 over peak Zizou, but do the injuries not count as a minus when we compare their legacies? R9 and Ronaldinho seem to be 2 players that allot of people judge solely on their prime.

 

Injuries prevented Ronaldo from being as dominant as he could have been.

But they also showed us the true depth of his skillset. He was able to remain amongst the best footballers of his time despite losing his God given physical abilities.

And all in all, I don't think Zidane won so much more or performed better over so much longer than Ronaldo did. He just finished on a higher note.

 

I don't think I've seen anything like Zidane in terms of impact, like @ToniSamp said...a guy who makes a team so much better just by stepping on the pitch.

We all have different ways of valuing prime, longevity, etc. But if you asked me for my All-Time Top 5 right now, R9 would be there and Zidane wouldn't (i.e. I'm valuing prime a lot). The locks are Pele #1, Messi #2. And Messi didn't need a WC to get there.

 

Ronaldo Nazario from Inter or Barcelona in tems of 1v1 on the ground probably is infinietly better than every pleayer ever put step on the earth. In terms of influence on the team (what is maybe bit more important from perspective of whole career) maybe Zidane.

 

It's not a question of prime, is a question of rarity when it comes to this two if someone says that R9 was a more special specimen.
And even taking the trolling aside, both the R9 "the best ever" without injuries and "the impact" of Zidane the best ever, just go quite a bit over the top and I'm being nice with the quite a bit.

We also tend to allways in a nostalgic way talk about how excessively praised can a player today be, that has a portion of truth in it, but we rarely talk about how nit picking and over the top todays perfomances are analyzed and seen in comparison to those from even these two that didn't play that long ago, in such terms we are a bit extremely gracious with them.

 

It's not a question of prime, is a question of rarity when it comes to this two if someone says that R9 was a more special specimen.
And even taking the trolling aside, both the R9 "the best ever" without injuries and "the impact" of Zidane the best ever, just go quite a bit over the top and I'm being nice with the quite a bit.

The impact part is just my perception...but when I say impact, I don't mean goals and assists necessarily but presence. Maybe the best way to look at it is to see how the team does when he isn't present...most notably, Paraguay in 1998 and then Senegal and Urguay in 2002. The difference is pretty astounding, especially when you consider that the sides had many exceptional players. And the players themselves spoke of him as a talisman of sorts, lol. You had grown ass men looking like scrubs when he wasn't on the pitch. And let's not forget that France lost to Italy on PK's without Zidane...isn't it nuts that people blame a guy who isn't on the pitch for a PK shootout loss? It is nuts but that tells you about the impact.

As for prime, R9's prime was when he was THE specimen; the Phenomenon. It's true though, as @Zico 10 mentioned, that R9's career wasn't short. He was able to extend his career by adjusting his game in 2002 and after that. Amazing player then...but imo, it doesn't compare to the previous iteration which was virtually unstoppable. Did prime R9 have limitations? A couple...not too great with headers, left foot wasn't great...and he had a very strict preference for receiving the ball directly to his feet via ground passes. In the case of many other strikers, this would mean they're out of the big conversation...but R9's abilities on the ball make us disregard the limitations and still make him a top EVER player.

 

R9 was/is unique.

There are only two footballers who remain unique and they are MALDINI & R9.

Name me another LB who was capable of playing as a LCB and dominate world football?

KROL was more of a sweeper so were SCHNELLINGER and FACCHETTI.
CHIELLINI comes to mind but he was way too limited.

On the right flank you have the likes of THURAM, BERGOMI, GENTILE, VOGTS, Djalma Santos and Carlos Alberto to a lesser degree, who were dominant as fullbacks and center-backs.

IL FENOMENO? a young Romario somewhat comes close but nowhere near as phenomenal. HENRY and CR7 lacked the positioning, dribbling, and finishing skills of one IL FENOMENO.

 

Watching his recent documentary and the injuries he got round 99 and 00 were pretty mad.

Comes back from his 1st big injury and then breaks again in his return match. (?)

 

It was terrible to watch at the time, still sends a shiver down your spine.

 

The biggest ‘what if’ for me is Baggio. We didn’t even get to see him play a single professional match (at the top level I mean) before he was permanently changed by injury.

But you’re right, the what if line of thought is always filled with romance and optimism.

In the case of Baggio, I doubt he’d have found Buddhism the way he did if he wasn’t injured and as a result highly depressed. We might’ve actually ended up with a lesser version in that alternate reality.

 

Duncan Edwards is the biggest what if. Not many central midfielders ever reached the Ballon d'Or podium, but he did it at 20.

 

my two fav players

memorable !

 

Ronaldo is the greatest player I've ever seen.

Zidane was a great player who has gotten vastly better every year since his retirement.

 

"Rolf er ren" (Rolf is clean) was a running joke in Denmark for a long time, when Rolf Sørensen was the last major hold-out from the generation of 1990s pro cyclists to deny the use of EPO and steroids.

Camel isn't saying Zidane didn't use them. Not that I necessarily agree with him that R9 is more "tainted" by the doping than ZZ.

 

@camelface I remember reading a lot about that after the injury. The argument was pretty much that his accelerated growth brought about a greater burden on the knees. I'm not a doping expert or a knee expert so I don't know how true that is.

R9 had a knee condition called trochlear dysplasia, which AFAIK essentially means that the knee-cap and the femur don't retain normal placement. It's a condition that requires constant monitoring as a top athlete...not to mention an athlete who is so explosive. It's said that he got this as he grew up. So the obvious question is whether HGH or something else could have caused it or if it's just natural.

But isn't this discussion leading somewhere? If you have to deduct "points" from Ronaldo for doping, then how about so many others?

 

A steroid that adds significant mass to your frame would probably be bad for your joints, but likewise one that doesn't add significant mass but instead adds a lot of strength will almost certainly be good for your joints.

An inflamed joint would often be treated with a corticosteroid, also a "steroid", and in all likelihood Ronaldo had a few jabs in his knee as part of his post-operative rehabilitation.

But all that said, I don't think there is anything out of the ordinary with Ronaldo's physique - he could easily have added a few kilos to his frame when he moved to Holland simply because (1) he was very young and (2) he probably only really started doing proper and consistent weight training when he moved there.

 

**** knows why, but I went to find a picture of Ronaldo's physique to post here and this is what I found. Apparently from 2007 when he joined AC Milan.

This is not the body you normally associate with cast iron proof of steroid (ab)use.

 

Calling The Translation Man @TTM

I think our friend here is contributing to the drug discussion

 

Calling The Translation Man @TTM

I think our friend here is contributing to the drug discussion

hahaha….indeed he is. Cocaine, Meth, md-something or other….this dude is a regular pharmacist

 

Different roles on the pitch, incomparable.

 

....BUT

we all know who turned up in the 1998 WC Final, and who didn't

Zizou is the stronger warrior.

 

This classic debate never gets old. As for me, I gotta give it up to Messi, man. That dude's just a wizard with the ball; his stats speak for themselves. Speaking of legends, did you guys catch that article about david beckham house in cape town? That joint is on another level! But let's remember that it's all about what you do on the pitch, not how big your house is. At the end of the day, it's all about personal preferences and opinions. Messi and Ronaldo have done incredible things in their careers, so it's hard to say who's the more significant player. But hey, that's what makes this debate so much fun!