Ronaldo Nazario: "When I was most comfortable and calm on the pitch, it was in front of the goalkeeper"

Ronaldo is standing surrounded by people in a Madrid hotel lounge.

A 15-minute interview has been scheduled, which will be extended a bit later.

It is not the dream situation to talk to someone, and the journalist escapes: "This is not going to go well."

Then, Ronaldo Luís Nazário de Lima (Rio de Janeiro, 46 ​​years old) shows his iconic smile from ear to ear: “Do you feel the pressure, huh?

Nothing happens because now it's your turn a little bit”, he says comparing a quick interview with a soccer game like the ones he played, watched by millions of people, in which he was always the one who was most expected.

Ronaldo 's

has a lot to do with the date.

The star stars in

, a DAZN documentary that premieres in Spain on the 21st and that touches many sticks, but stops at one: the inexplicable crisis that Ronaldo, then the best footballer on the planet, suffered hours before the World Cup final against France in Paris.

“I shared a room with Roberto [Carlos].

We went for a walk and, when we got back, Roberto lay down in bed to sleep a little.

I went to the bathroom to shave my head.

And that's the last thing I remember, ”he says in the documentary chatting with Roberto Carlos.

The legendary Brazilian side had the most bitter awakening of his life.

He opened his eyes to find Ronaldo “lying on his side, looking at me, totally rigid.

I looked at you and you were already… I don't know”.

Ronaldo suggests: “Shaking?

Was he having the seizure?

And Roberto Carlos: “I don't know if it was an epileptic seizure.

But you started shaking a lot.

Even today I don't know what happened.

It was horrible".

It lasted three minutes.

And suddenly he stopped.

Ronaldo, who kept his eyes open the entire time, regained consciousness and found 15 people in his room.

"What are you doing looking at me while I sleep?"

More information

Ronaldo, the power of the goal

Ronaldo fell out of the starting eleven, half the world wondered what had happened, he went to the hospital, they did tests and, with medical permission and an hour before the game, the Phenomenon returned to the eleven instead of Edmundo ("I don't care what What did you think, the position is earned in the field, ”he says in the documentary).

Zidane's France crushed Brazil 3-0, and the

it became a matter of state that deposited him in a parliamentary investigation commission to deny that Nike, with whom he had a contract whose secret clauses did not tell anything, had pressured him to play the final.

He was hero and villain, and all things at the same time, between tears and accusations from his mother - who was not notified of her son's health problem in the hours before the final - and the shock of a country that saw in Ronaldo the best opportunity for the five-time championship and that ended, hot, blaming him for defeat.

Ask.

She was afraid.

Response.

I was scared to death.

What if something serious happened to me and I couldn't play?

Suddenly, the only chance to play the final that I had been dreaming of all my life [Ronaldo was part of Brazil in 1994, but he didn't play a minute] was to check that there was nothing serious and that nothing would compromise my health.

They were very hard moments.

Q.

But I had nothing.

They couldn't even tell him what had happened.

R.

After the World Cup I did thousands of tests: nothing was found at all.

What happened to me before the final was as if it had never happened: no trace, no cause, no consequence.

P.

Is it possible that it did not affect you during the match?

Isn't there a moment when you turn your head, when you keep it in mind, when it happens again but this time in front of tens of millions of people?

R.

During the match, no.

Definitely.

I was looking for opportunities to score goals, to get rid of the defender, to move around the field looking for the opportunity to do damage.

The head is exclusively within the party.

A World Cup final!

What else could he think of?

You don't think about anything, it's impossible.

P.

And after the World Cup, the fear of not playing again returned.

A.

More times.

The first knee injury was very ugly.

There was no precedent for how this injury was treated in football, there was no medical history to tell us how something like this was handled.

I was very scared.

Q.

But not the fear of throwing everything away.

R.

Not the mortal fear that makes you give up.

Quite the contrary: with each obstacle that seemed impossible, I tried harder and overcame it.

I had to overcome myself many times, I had to overcome unthinkable things, very long periods of time recovering and training alone.

But the love I had and have for football made up for everything.

Zidane, watched by Ronaldo, heads in to score one of his two goals in the 1998 World Cup final between France and Brazil. OMAR TORRES (AFP via Getty Images)

That love was a lot.

After the first break in the knee he was followed by an illness that ended up becoming permanent tendinitis.

And his comeback, at last, came at the Rome Olympics on April 12, 2000 against Lazio.

Ronaldo came out in the 58th minute. The expectation was brutal.

After six minutes, he took the ball and went straight for two defenders, who backed into the area, scared: the Phenomenon was back.

But, two meters from his rivals, he shattered his knee stepping on the field.

The image of him is iconic: the most famous smile in football crying in pain with his hands on his right leg.

“I felt the kneecap go up my thigh.

I cried and screamed in despair.

It wasn't so much the pain, it was the pain in my heart."

The images of his teammates and rivals give goosebumps.

Those he tried to outdo,

Couto and Mihajlovic surround him consoling him.

But there is no consolation.

“The noise was heard in the field.

We all hear it.

The noise that something had broken.

It was a very violent noise.

And we got desperate”, says Diego Simeone, then in Lazio, during the documentary.

The image of Ronaldo leaving on a stretcher went around the world.

The question was serious: would he play football again?

His own doctor did not put her hand in the fire.

“I thought of the worst.

I thought it was the end," says Ronnie, who was surprised by the first visit he received, since they were not friends yet: Zinedine Zidane, who now remembers: "I went to tell him: you are a titan, you are a monster.

You're going to come back because football needs you."

It was a very violent noise.

And we got desperate”, says Diego Simeone, then in Lazio, during the documentary.

The image of Ronaldo leaving on a stretcher went around the world.

The question was serious: would he play football again?

His own doctor did not put her hand in the fire.

“I thought of the worst.

I thought it was the end," says Ronnie, who was surprised by the first visit he received, since they were not friends yet: Zinedine Zidane, who now remembers: "I went to tell him: you are a titan, you are a monster.

You're going to come back because football needs you."

It was a very violent noise.

And we got desperate”, says Diego Simeone, then in Lazio, during the documentary.

The image of Ronaldo leaving on a stretcher went around the world.

The question was serious: would he play football again?

His own doctor did not put her hand in the fire.

“I thought of the worst.

I thought it was the end," says Ronnie, who was surprised by the first visit he received, since they were not friends yet: Zinedine Zidane, who now remembers: "I went to tell him: you are a titan, you are a monster.

You're going to come back because football needs you."

I thought it was the end," says Ronnie, who was surprised by the first visit he received, since they were not friends yet: Zinedine Zidane, who now remembers: "I went to tell him: you are a titan, you are a monster.

You're going to come back because football needs you."

I thought it was the end," says Ronnie, who was surprised by the first visit he received, since they were not friends yet: Zinedine Zidane, who now remembers: "I went to tell him: you are a titan, you are a monster.

You're going to come back because football needs you."

P.

How do you become after splitting like this, twice almost in a row, your best work tool?

How do you support that leg at the same speed?

How does it shoot?

R.

With a lot of preparation.

And yet I had many doubts.

First it was a partial break, then a complete break... When you return to the field, when you touch the ball again, you have doubts.

I had strength data that gave me a lot of confidence, but you go out to the field and doubts.

Little by little you gain confidence.

Very little by little, but yes: confidence in the knee broken twice, in the supports.

Q.

Was Ronaldo's body not prepared for Ronaldo's game?

The explosiveness of him, his spike speed, the snap of him.

R.

_

I have a theory.

The fault is not my explosiveness, but the training sessions at the beginning of my career.

From the first 10 years, for example, from physical punishment.

One of the things that has evolved the most in football is physical preparation.

Before it was more group, more collective, even the data was taken as a team.

The individual characteristics of each one were not interested.

I did the Cooper test many times and I played with Cafu, with Roberto Carlos, people who had my speed, my acceleration!

For many years I was doing things that did not interest my body and my characteristics.

When I understood that I needed special care for my game, things got better.

In the DAZN documentary, El Fenomeno complains, especially, about the physical demands in Italy.

“Every day, four kilometers of running.

I used to get out of bed and I didn't want to go to training”, she says smiling.

Vieri emphasizes Héctor Cúper's relationship with the Brazilian star.

“How can one get along badly with Ronaldo?

It is impossible.

Everybody adored him.

I had to have said something to Cuper.

I should have told him: 'Leave him alone and let him do what he wants.

Do I have to run more?

Okay.

Zanetti?

Okay.

We train and shut up.

But he doesn't, he has enough with his own”.

Upon arriving in Madrid, Ronaldo is credited with saying this to Fabio Capello: "Mister, I came to Real Madrid to play the piano, not to run around it."

Q.

You reinvented yourself as a striker.

R.

_

I had to reinvent myself several times.

Not completely, because it was going fast, very fast.

Not so fast anymore, it's true.

For example, when I arrive in Madrid with the injuries overcome, I am very fast, but not as fast as in the time of Barcelona or Inter, who flew.

But yes very fast.

And I took the opportunity to exploit other qualities even more: improve the effectiveness of the shots on goal, take better advantage of the spaces in the area, be more in contact with the ball and play more collectively.

🗣️"I remember that he scored every goal that was the h***. That rascal had every start..."

Romario shared a dressing room with Ronaldo and is still amazed at the things he saw him do 👀

'The Phenomenon @Ronaldo', soon on DAZN 🎩✨ pic.twitter.com/aFc32S5r8h

– DAZN Spain (@DAZN_ES) October 13, 2022

Q.

Your specialty was still intact: one on one.

Especially with the goalkeeper.

R.

_

It was one of my main virtues: the one-on-one with the goalkeeper, facing him alone.

For me it was the most comfortable and calm situation.

It improves a lot during training.

But besides that he had the right idea of ​​how the matchup works.

Q.

How?

R.

Confidence in my possibilities.

Ball control, speed control.

Understand the goalkeeper's position and thinking: put yourself in his place to try to guess his reaction, and how he sees you when he has you in front of him.

A slight movement triggers all the action, and I always had the calm to, in that dizzying moment, make the right decision.

Know if I should hold on, or if I should leave one side or the other.

I failed a few times!

But not the majority: the majority dribbled past the goalkeeper and left me behind an empty goal.

Q.

The goal against Lazio in the UEFA final.

Not even the viewer knows where you are going to go in the repetition.

R.

Then there was already a lot of talk about how they should stop me in the heads-up, what had to be done so that I didn't leave the goalkeeper behind.

And many said: you have to put up with it, you have to put up with it until the end, but how long can a goalkeeper put up with a striker who goes towards him and is aiming at him?

In that action I understood what was going through the head of the goalkeeper in front of me, I made several feints, I left...

Q.

Did you watch videos?

R.

No, but I spoke a lot with the goalkeepers in all the teams I went through.

He was trying to get all the information they had out of them.

I know what they felt.

I know that it is a moment of absolute stress for both of them, the striker and the goalkeeper, because it is the last duel between two players out of 22 on the pitch: goal or no goal.

But the strikers have a lot of advantage: the speed of the one who goes for a goal, the speed of the one who defends it.

The striker has the ball, control of the situation and the idea of ​​what he wants to do.

A small movement, whatever it is, creates a distraction for the goalkeeper that can take him to the ground.

Q.

The look?

R.

With the eyes it is more difficult.

They look more at the legs than the face.

They look you in the eye as a way to intimidate in a penalty, or in a foul.

But in the play it is useless: I am looking at the ball, yes, but with a peripheral vision to know where it would be easier for me to leave.

P.

The goal in the 2003 Madrid derby. You and Mono Burgos alone 13 seconds into the game.

That hand in hand is impressive, it seemed that he ran over him.

He had a hard time throwing it away, but how long did he last?

R.

There I endured until the end.

Not one more tenth could have endured.

Even if I made a move, or two, or three, I held on.

I held out as long as I could.

He was a very good goalkeeper.

Actually, the Argentine goalkeeping school is one of the best in the world.

And in a hand in hand they endure a lifetime.

But that also opens up other possibilities, like the shot.

Everything is about taking advantage of a second, an oversight, whatever.

P.

Another thing that always attracts attention: how a player like you, on whom all eyes are on, is left alone in an area full of opposing players.

A.

[Smiles] Training.

Lots of training behind.

It depends on the position in which the winger or the midfielder is and you know, because you have trained him a lot, how he is going to give it to you and what feint you have to do to get rid of the defender.

Gain space and have a second to finish off.

You ask for it at the second post and there is a very fast visual communication with the teammate who has the ball, who already knows that you are going to go to the first.

Or vice versa.

The

has to be perfect and that

is usually trained.

Q.

Ballon d'Or.

R.

Benzema.

He has been playing very well for years.

Last year I thought it would be him.

This season he has played top class football, he has scored many goals, he has been decisive and has won the most important titles.

And he came back to France, and he came back very well.

There will be no surprises: he is guaranteed.

Q.

Would Benzema have been better without Cristiano?

R.

The two helped each other a lot, not just him Cristiano, and it was a special time.

Now there is a bright future ahead with Haaland, with Mbappé, with Vinicius: players who are going to fight for the next Ballon d'Or. But this year is Benzema's year.

From left to right: Éder Militão, Carlo Ancelotti, Ronaldo Nazario, Florentino Pérez, Rodrygo Goes and Vinícius at the world premiere of the documentary 'The Phenomenon', at Callao cinemas in Madrid this Friday. Fernando Alvarado (EFE)

About the classic that is played this Sunday, he said on DAZN: “It is an incredible competition between Real Madrid and Barcelona to see who is the best team in the world.

I guess the Spaniards have to be very proud to have both teams, that this rivalry is getting healthier and more beautiful for people to enjoy”.

"I don't know," he added in the same interview, "how I was able to play for both teams without anyone hating me."

The career of Ronaldo, today a businessman and owner of Real Club Valladolid and Cruzeiro, his childhood team, had a happy ending.

Four years after the lost final in Paris, and after the

With his knees, the best center forward in the world returned to the World Cup in Korea and Japan.

He was no longer Ronaldo, according to Jorge Valdano: he was the herd.

He attacked like a buffalo.

But the shadows returned and a sore thigh ahead of the semi-final against Turkey entertained the press.

So Ronaldo shaved off, as usual, his entire head… except for the front part.

The image was hideous.

Scolari flew into a rage, as he tells in the documentary.

“You didn't ask me for permission, this is a shame”, and he added the fundamental key: “And if we lose, what do we do, what do we say?”.

Zidane smiles: “Good cut, good cut.

I wouldn't dare, but he was The Phenomenon and he did whatever he wanted”.

Ronaldo did not capitulate: double or nothing.

And the press had stopped talking about his discomfort.

Brazil beat Turkey and then, with Ronaldo and his visor intact, Germany.

He was the top scorer in the World Cup and scored both goals in the final.

Never has a player deserved so much such joy.

A

year ago he told

the origin of his name: "The doctor didn't charge for the delivery because my parents couldn't pay, so my father brought him three kilos of shrimp that he picked up on the beach and then they named me after the doctor".

But in Sao Cristovao, the humble field in Sao Paulo where he kicked the ball for the first time, a graffiti does not recall the name of the doctor, but rather that of the player who marked an era: "Aqui nasceu O Fenomeno."

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