Naz Majeed
Before Ronaldo, there was Ronaldo.

The late 90s was a strange and exciting time for football fans. This was an age before YouTube and before Tweets and Vines and Instagram. The reach of “Social Media” was still limited to discrete instant-messaging programs on your desktop, and the entire idea of “apps” was still very much unheard-off. So you depended on your weekly roundup and highlights shows to bring you the best from around the world, especially if you - like me - lived in a place where one particular league dominated over the others.

The English Premier League has always - and probably will always - be the biggest draw for many parts of the world, and in Singapore that was very much the case. The emergence of Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal sandwiched between the first two great Manchester United teams assembled by Sir Alex Ferguson, it seemed like the only thing you needed to watch was English football.

Even during this era where digital communication was still limited to the realm of business and academia, fans would find a way to devour more and more content. Be it through the ever-increasing popularity of video games or the growing reach of cable networks - themselves filling their channels with “foreign” content - more and more fans began to see things beyond the familiar scenes of the first decade of Premier League coverage.

Serie A was the booming voice in global football, then. A league that seemed to have more than half a dozen top teams filled with top players, there was always a big game every week, and fans would tune in to watch Maldini, Del Piero, Batistuta, Crespo, Salas, and Weah and the novelty of the experience gave us a chance to pledge new allegiances (I gravitated towards AC Milan) and new heroes (Paolo Maldini, of course). And in 1997, a new one arrived.

He would not yet be given the moniker Il Fenomeno, but one look at him told you how phenomenal he already was. The strength, the speed, the sheer systematic savagery at which he would tear apart teams was frightening. This was a player that had the trickery to beat a man anywhere on the pitch, the power to hold off wildly violent challenges in an age where physicality was much more pronounced, and the finishing to make sure he would have the last laugh against any opposition. It was awe-inspiring. 

Forwards and strikers have always been the headline-makers, and the majority of children who play football hope to emulate their favourite. Ronaldo would very quickly become everyone’s favourite, and almost overnight the stepover became the de facto “move” you would pull off during a game with your friends.

None of us were able to do it as smoothly, as quickly, as astonishingly effectively as Ronaldo, of course, but then it seemed nobody in the world at any level had that ability either. Here was someone who seemed to have been forged out of a video game, so much so that it would be frustrating to fans not to be able to replicate his ability to seamlessly destroy any opposition defense when taking control of his virtual self in the then-cutting edge versions of FIFA or Championship Manager.

How was Ronaldo better than a video game?

The simple fact was that he just was. And this was a fact that was very quickly recognized and utilized by Nike, who had anointed the Brazilian as their main man, alongside the likes of Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan. 

While the airport ad was - and still is - an amazing piece of art and media, it was not, of course, Nike’s first blockbuster football ad, having produced the wildly successful “Good vs Evil” ad in 1996.

For two years, children around the world would turn up their collars and murmur their own garbled version of Eric Cantona’s “au revoir”, but what many may forget was that Ronaldo was the one to provide the “assist” before Cantona’s famous cinematic goal. Wearing the Brazil kit, Ronaldo would showcase some of his dribbling skill, though he would take a back seat to Cantona in the end.

Fast forward to the airport, however, it was Ronaldo who was front and centre (Cantona making a cameo), reflecting his status as football’s biggest superstar. The ad ends with him “missing” an open goal while being cheered on by the masses, a cheeky subversion of expectations played perfectly in this piece and others to follow, where Nike and other corporations would seem to subtly acknowledge that the man was simply too good, and even in a staged and perfect setting, they had to “reduce” him to the standards that us mere mortals could relate to, and aspire to.

His ascent into the stratosphere of the footballing world would continue as Ronaldo moved from Internazionale to Real Madrid, though by now the player would begin to suffer from a number of debilitating knee injuries.

Despite the nature of the setbacks, however, Ronaldo would continue to terrorize defences all over Europe and the World, starring in the 2002 World Cup (though he would never win the Champions League).

Dropped by Fabio Capello in 2007, however, he would then move back to Italy, joining Inter’s eternal rivals AC Milan, scoring on his debut, and in the Milan derby later that season. It would be with Milan in 2008 where Ronaldo would suffer his third serious knee injury, and his European career would be over, ending in tears as he was stretchered off the pitch.

Eventually retiring in 2011 after three seasons with Corinthians in Brazil, Ronaldo resurfaced in 2018, becoming the majority shareholder at Real Valladolid in what was widely seen as a shock move.

Having no previous ties to the club, many were left scratching their heads as to why it was that the Brazil and Real Madrid legend would invest so heavily in a team known more for bouncing between divisions than anything else. The sentiment was the agreed-upon answer, the Valladolid located a fairly short drive from Madrid, with Ronaldo himself still apparently having prior investments in the surrounding region.

It has been reported that the club is in the midst of an ambitious stadium upgrade and expansion project, and with their place in La Liga seemingly safe, Ronaldo’s stewardship of the club may yet see them do what Valencia and Deportivo did at the turn of the century and rise to challenge the established giants.

The Brazilian has admitted to taking advantage his status and standing in the game to convince players to join Valladolid, a traditionally mediocre side, and there could be every chance that a young South American striker looking to make his name in Europe may see that playing under one of the greatest ever forwards is the first step in fulfilling their imagined destiny.

President or promoter, Ronaldo is the player that everyone will always remember. After Pele and Maradona, but before Messi and the next Ronaldo, there was the first. Breathtaking, record-breaking, game-changing, Ronaldo shattered expectations wherever he went. Playing on both sides of El Clasico and the Milan Derby, starring in cups and commercials, and was a player whose very real performances would have been labelled as preposterous if you did not have evidence of his talent.

He would always be the one player I remember being consistently wowed by, watching the way he danced past defenders and goalkeepers, leaving them trailing in his wake. A superstar, a legend, an icon, Ronaldo was it all, the face of football for a generation and more.