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Subject: Ronaldo!!!!!!!
Posted by: Gangman
- Leader [19228200] Sun, Jun 30, 2002, 08:44
Gooooooooooooalllllllllllll! 67 min.
Gooooooooooooalllllllllllll! 79 min.
Brasil will win the World Cup! |
| 1 | mIST
ID: 3701817
Sun, Jun 30, 2002, 16:47
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I told you, he's still the number one...
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| 2 | Gangman
Leader
ID: 58238278
Sun, Jun 30, 2002, 19:50
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From George Vescey - NY Times
OKOHAMA, Japan — Let the others make the samba music; Ronaldo made the goals.
They danced exactly as they played, a little to the left, a little to the right, quick steps, big smiles, but always going forward.
Out first was Ronaldinho beating a drum to the samba beat. Where did he get the drum? Brazilians always have a drum. Denilson also had a drum, and half a dozen players also joined in the samba line right through some of the reporters waiting for quotes.
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Ronaldo did not join the line. He was besieged for interviews, what with his two goals helping Brazil beat Germany, 2-0, in the final of the World Cup.
It would have been all right even if Ronaldo did not score the goals. Just being out on the field in a waking condition was a bonus, after four years ago.
This time he was right on the beat. He earned both his goals. He not only put the ball in the net the way strikers are supposed to do, but he created the first goal with his physicality and he finished the second one with his opportunism.
By now it is an old familiar soap opera how Ronaldo had come up sick, from an unknown malady, on the afternoon of the final in France 1998. He has had to endure the questions and perhaps even the self-doubts about his physical condition.
Last night there was only one way he could totally put away the bad memories, and he did it.
In the 67th minute he had enough adrenalin flowing to push Dietmar Hamann off the ball, right to the damp ground, and then he poked the ball inside to Kleberson, who took a shot on goal. Oliver Kahn picked a horrific time for his first flub in this World Cup, which created a rebound for Ronald, who had the presence to poke it home.
Then it was a team effort for the second one in the 79th minute - a beautiful sideways pass from Kleberson to Rivaldo, who got his long legs in gear as if to dribble or hammer a shot, but instead let the ball go between his legs, the way the Brazilians do in their keep-away practices. Ronaldo was waiting. Well, he had been waiting four years.
Later, after the ad hoc Brazilian samba band had zigged and zagged through the mixed zone, Ronaldo tried to give some meaning to his feat of coming back from his mysterious illness followed by nearly three years of knee injuries. His broad smile revealed the charming gap between his two front teeth.
"I think I would be telling a lie if I wouldn't be happy every time I step on the pitch, every time I score a goal," he said. "I can play, I can score, I can be happy. This is a big step for me."
He praised his God, he praised his family, and he remembered to thank a trainer who had helped him.
"If I didn't have the World Cup, I would definitely be happy," he said.
But having said that, he admitted that "having the World Cup in my hands is one of the most wonderful moments, but I know it wouldn't happen if I didn't have the team with me."
Ronaldo has waited and Ronaldo has suffered. He did not get off the bench during Brazil's World Cup championship in 1994 when he was 17. He had his illness in 1998. How did four years of waiting compare in misery to the 40 days of celibacy imposed on the team by the coach, Luiz Felipe Scolari?
"I'm not saying that sex is not special," Ronaldo said, "but sex is something I'm going to have in just a few moments whereas the World Cup only happens every four years."
He would not discuss whether he would play in four years. He has now caught Pele for the most goals by a Brazilian in a World Cup, and he is only two behind the record held by Gerd Muller of the former West Germany. But four years is a long time for Ronaldo, for anybody. That is what makes the World Cup so special. It takes four years of machinations and aspirations and qualifying rounds just to get to the final 32. The Brazilians and the Germans have different standards from most nations. Both teams entered this tournament with lack of enthusiasm from their home fans. Few Brazilian fans factored in a healthy Ronaldo at the end of such a versatile production line that it even wore down the hard-grinding Germans.
These were the heavyweights, the main event, but they could not quite eclipse the sporting mood of the third-place match held the night before in South Korea.
Normally, the consolation match is just that, one more payday for FIFA, and two sets of weary athletes slogging through their paces. But in this case, Turkey defeated the home nation, 3-2, and then the Turkish players grabbed the apparently mortified South Koreans as they took bows at all corners of the stadium, a show of solidarity rare in any championship match.
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