An idol back home

Falling from grace and coming back, just like the Phoenix; One could certainly say these words describe the trajectory of a player that has again reborn to football, now in his native land: Ronaldo.

Ronaldo’s history is well known worldwide: the great football player that Cruzeiro introduced to the world as well as the man with many injuries and controversial headlines.

After almost 15 years playing in Dutch, Spanish and Italian leagues – and three severe knee injuries, he came back to Brazil in 2008 to treat his knee, be with his family and, maybe, put an end to his career, that made him a global superstar and and an idol in Brazil, where he is a role model for those young football players. At first, he was training at Flamengo’s facilities (his favourite club) and they thought of siginig him, but never made an offer.

That’s when a club came up with a plan to have a strong performance in 2009, and prepare for its centennial celebration, in 2010. Corinthians signed Ronaldo with a salary that no other club in Brazil could match. Revenues also come from the sponsors advertising on the team’s shirt: 80% of such revenues go to Ronaldo. All added up, he makes as much money as he would in a top European club, and made Corinthians’ shirt look like a billboard.

Presented with a hype that the Brazilian football doesn’t see very often, soon enough all things related to Ronaldo were in the news, and yet, Brazilians seem not to get enough of him. Everything became a headline: his home, his new-born daughter, the women that keep him company, and – most of all – his weight. Ronaldo clearly has been having weight issues for a long time now. Whenever he’s not playing constantly, he puts on more weight. He reached a reportedly maximum of 105kg in the beginning of this year, and lost a portion of that in training with Corinthians.

Completing his recovery from a banged up knee and getting a place on the squad would be the next logical moves. However, Ronaldo’s weight proved again to be a serious problem, affecting his mobility on the pitch. Corinthians’ coach Mano Menezes had to even pull togheter a physical department that the club had never had, and a plan to make Ronaldo play an incresingly number of minutes at each match, so that he could be in his prime at the end of the regional “Paulistão” (São Paulo State Championship) and the “Copa do Brasil” (Brazilian Cup).

The plan worked well and Ronaldo scored his first goal with Corinthians in the last minutes of a derby against Palmeiras, equalising that game in its very final minutes. Bear in mind that Palmeiras versus Corinthians is one of the most fierce rivalries in Brazilian football and for the fans of Corinthians, having a goal scored by Ronaldo to avoid losing to its rival was like an honorable act performed by a martyr. That goal was the single most showed one of all time on Brazilian TV to the date.

Following some routine muscular stress-related injuries, Ronaldo proved his importance with an astonishing rate of shoots and goals, scoring in almost every match and being key on the winnings of both championships: Brazilian Cup and São Paulo State.

Coach Menezes’ efforts to make Ronaldo play also include different tactics scheme; different from all other clubs in Brazil. Corinthians plays with two midfielders marking, one loose to make the plays and one forward open on each side, with Ronaldo in the middle, always the last touch in front of the goal, so that he doesn´t need to move that much. Besides, he is the only one on the team that does not have a defensive role. It’s safe to say that Ronaldo’s role in the team has been so key that without him, the team is kind of lost all over the pitch, mainly because Corinthians does not have a forward that can replace Ronaldo with his level of quality: hold the ball and kick it to the goal.

What’s going on with him at the moment? Just a little while ago, in another match against Palmeiras, Ronaldo fell over his own hand, breaking some hand bones. After getting a prognosis for recovery, he chose to put pins in his hand so that the healing process could be faster. Since he was already going to undergo a procedure, he also got a cosmectical liposuction surgery, to get rid of some extra weigth he could not lose with hard work.

After some weeks celebrating the titles, and with the team having to sell some important players to pay its debts, Corinthians is curently midtable in the Brazilian Championship. Current games will probably be used to form a squad for “Copa Libertadores” next year, with Ronaldo, Corinthians’ biggest dream, as they are the only big club in São Paulo that has never won this Continental trophy.

His playing style had to be changed because of his figure, but he is still a great player. No matter where he is, he gets to keep crowds entertained: either with his talent in the fields or his own life.