It was harder to be the best in my time, says Ronaldo
Legendary Brazilian forward Ronaldo Nazario claims that it was harder to be the best during his playing years.
The Brazilian, who is famously known as ‘O Fenomeno’ (The Phenomenon), debuted for Brazil during 1994 and he had to pit his talents against the likes of Romario and the divine ponytail Roberto Baggio. In later years he would be playing for Madrid alongside another legend in the form of current Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane.
Ronaldo was the king in the box and during one season with Barcelona he scored 34 goals in 1996, a La Liga record at that time – a record that would be broken by Lionel Messi.
In an interview with Sport Bild, Ronaldo revealed the difficulties of being the best player back in his time.
In my generation, the competition was much bigger than it is now, without wanting to belittle Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo," he said.
Further competition came in the form of Luis Figo, another Real Madrid teammate and Barcelona’s skillful Brazilian Ronaldinho. Ronaldo suggested that Messi and Ronaldo will continue to fight for the top awards in the coming years but in his generation, there were many great players.
"They will fight for the title of the best player in the world in the coming years, but in my time we had Zidane, Rivaldo, Figo, me, and then Ronaldinho.
"That was a generation in which being the best was much more difficult."
Barca not a good place for Brazilians: Ronaldo
He also commented on Neymar’s departure from Barcelona and suggested that there are parallels between his move to Inter Milan from Barca in 1997 and Neymar leaving for PSG.
"I do not know what went behind his transfer, maybe there was a problem with the presidency of Barcelona, like what happened with me," Ronaldo stated.
"Neymar's departure from Barcelona has many parallels with what happened in 1997.
"I went to Inter when the Italian league was much stronger than the French league today."
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