Ronaldo Again

June 30, 2006
Ronaldo Defies the Weight Watchers
By JERE LONGMAN
BERLIN, June 29 — The Brazilian forward Ronaldo came into the World Cup overweight and underappreciated. Even before the tournament began, he sustained blisters, a respiratory infection, dizziness, lacerating wounds of mockery and a terminal rash of awful headline puns.
In a video conference with the team, none other than Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said: "So what is it? Is Ronaldo fat or isn't he?"
To which Ronaldo shot back, "Just as he says I'm fat, everybody knows he drinks too much."
Adding, "It's just as much of a lie that I am fat to say that he drinks too much."
Having been verbally red-carded for his cleats-up remarks, da Silva sent an apologetic fax "reaffirming his affection for the player."
And now everyone seems to be reassessing their opinions of Ronaldo, 29, who has become the World Cup's leading career scorer with 15 goals as Brazil has advanced to play France in the quarterfinals Saturday in Frankfurt.
His record goal came Tuesday in the fifth minute of a 3-0 victory against Ghana. Alone after breaking an offside trap, Ronaldo took a long pass from midfielder Kaká. Ghana's goalkeeper, Richard Kingson, charged off his line, but Ronaldo stepped over the ball and Kingson tumbled to the ground at the luminous feint. Ronaldo sliced to his left and, with a defender running futilely at him, pushed the ball into the net with his right foot.
Summoned in that stirring instant was the nimbleness, creativity and anticipation that many believed had escaped Ronaldo.
Some in the German news media had taken to calling him Pummelnaldo, or Roly Poly Ronaldo. But he has delivered three goals in four matches, upstaged his younger teammate Ronaldinho and kept Brazil on target to win an unmatched sixth World Cup title.
"He is again on top of every player in the world," Carlos Alberto Parreira, Brazil's coach, said of Ronaldo after the victory against Ghana.
With 15 career goals in the World Cup, Ronaldo surpassed the 14 scored by Germany's Gerd Müller in 1970 and 1974. International newspaper headlines that once said Ronaldo could not pull his weight now hailed him as a goal glutton.
"Fat's the way to do it," said The Liverpool Daily Post of England.
Müller offered his praises in an interview posted on the World Cup Web site of FIFA, soccer's world governing body. "Playing at such a high level over such a long period of time, always managing to be fit at the right moment is unusual nowadays," he said.
"In my opinion, he's the best, most complete attacker there is at the moment. Brazil needs Ronaldo. They haven't got anyone quicker than him upfront."
Ronaldo has been named soccer's world player of the year three times. He is one of the greatest strikers in the history of the game. But his World Cup career has been one of striking contrast. And he has always seemed to play better in the face of skepticism.
In the United States in 1994, as a 17-year-old, he did not leave the bench as Brazil won its fourth title, even though Parreira's mother admonished him to put the player called the Phenomenon into the lineup.
Four years later, Brazil again reached the final, but Ronaldo had what has been called a seizure the day of the championship game against France. Teammates said he was found convulsing in his hotel room.
Ronaldo has said he remembers nothing but being cold and shaking. He played listlessly in the final and Brazil lost, 3-0, setting off a wild celebration in Paris.
In 2002, after torn knee ligaments twice threatened his career, a rejuvenated Ronaldo scored eight goals in seven matches, including both in a 2-0 victory against Germany in the championship game in Yokohama, Japan.
Perhaps this should have been a lesson not to write him off here in Germany. But he had been in a personal and athletic slump entering this World Cup. His marriage to a Brazilian model fell apart last year three months after the wedding. A thigh injury with Real Madrid shelved him for most of April in Spain's La Liga. Fans there jeered him.
Michel Platini, the former French star, suggested that Ronaldo carried "too many years" and "too many kilos." Pelé, his countryman, suggested that Ronaldo's career was being adversely affected by his problems off the field. Irritated, Ronaldo charged that Pelé was a "cheap opportunist."
Yet early in the World Cup, Ronaldo appeared thick around the waist and immobile. His sedentary performance in a 1-0 opening victory against Croatia startled many who had witnessed Ronaldo's once fabulous combination of speed, muscle and dexterity.