There’s no doubt Cristiano Ronaldo has risen from a tricky, fast-paced winger to become football’s greatest goal scorer. But is Ronaldo selfish? question like who is the most selfish football player in the world.
Even Jamie Carragher an ex-footballer turned pundit, and a self-proclaimed CR7-antagonist said Cristiano Ronaldo was the greatest goal scorer though he was trying to make a mute point about him not being the greatest player as if you can be a goal scorer without being a player.
There are a lot of football fans that genuinely believe Cristiano Ronaldo is only a pure goalscorer, and denying the fact that he was ever a playmaker in his over two decades playing career. There are even football fans who go ahead to say Neymar is close to Cristiano Ronaldo than Ronaldo is close to Lionel Messi in terms of football based on the belief that Ronaldo is a pure goalscorer.
Is Ronaldo the most selfish player?
There is also a big narrative in the media that brands Cristiano Ronaldo as a selfish player and not a team player for a long time which has further damaged his reputation as a playmaker. But why do a lot of fans believe these myths when clear evidence proves the opposite.
Before we dive into Cristiano Ronaldo as a playmaker. Let’s take a look at who is a playmaker in football.
The most universal definition of a playmaker is a footballer who controls the flow of the team’s attacking play, mostly using their passing moves that lead to goals. Playmakers use their vision, technique, ball control, creativity and passing ability to carry out their playmaking duties. Please, note that the term playmaker doesn’t refer to a position on the field. It’s all about function on the field of play rather than position.
There are two broad types of playmakers. The advanced playmakers and the deep-lying playmakers. The clue is in their names. The advanced playmakers operate further up the football pitch when in possession while deep-lying operate at the deep area of the pitch.
A good deep-lying playmaker must be good at keeping possession in the midfield through quick sharp passing, movements off the ball to receive passes and ball control under pressure not to give the ball away. They also have more defensive responsibility compared to advanced playmakers.
The best examples of deep-lying playmakers are Sergio Busquets, Rodri, Thomas Partey, Xabi Alonso, Paul Scholes, Michael Carrick, Toni Kroos, Jorginho, Aurelien Tchouameni, Ross Barkley Pierre-Emile Holjberg, Paul Pogba, Frankie de Jong and so on. These players are mostly DM and CM, but they are actually good at being deep-lying playmakers.
I won’t say the same for players like Scott McTominay, Sofyan Amrabat or Sambi Lokonga even though they are also midfielders.
However, it’s important to note that in recent times, full-backs have begun to function as deep-lying playmakers when in possession. Players like Zinchenko, Cancelo, Alexander-Arnold have been functioning as deep-lying playmakers, helping out in the midfield while also being instrumental in building up plays from the midfield area.
Cristiano Ronaldo doesn’t belong to that category either, ever. He has never functioned as a deep-lying playmaker in his over two-decade career as a footballer. But is that a bad thing? Not exactly.
So, that leaves us with advanced playmakers. These playmakers do their thing mostly in the final third. They are more offensive with their passing, movements and overall plays. The most defining factor of their football is their ability to create chances, giving the final pass, either through crosses, lobbed passes, through-balls, layoffs and even horizontal and diagonal passes into dangerous areas.
An advanced playmaker that doesn’t know how to create chances is not a playmaker no matter how technically gifted they seem to be on the ball, and as an advanced playmaker, the more chances they are able to create, the more highly rated they are in the footballing world.
Just like goal scorers. The more they score, the more they are recognized. Of course, advanced playmakers have other duties aside from creating chances with final passes.
Advanced playmakers participate in link-up play, run behind the defense line to stretch it, create space for other teammates with their off the ball movements, take-on players, move the ball forward as quickly as possible, and even run into goal scoring positions to score themselves. Also, some advanced playmakers have the ability to create their own chances or take set-pieces.
But there are two main types of advanced playmakers. The central advanced playmakers and the wide advanced playmakers. Also, the clue is in the name. The central advanced playmakers can be attacking midfielders like Bruno Fernandes, Ozil, Kaka, Payet, Kevin De Bruyne, Isco, James Rodriguez, Martin Odegaard and Son are free role playmakers like Lionel Messi, Zidane, Zico, Maradona, Pele, Jay-Jay Okocha and so on. Or false nine like Firmino or even Bernardo Silva before the arrival of Erling Haaland.
We also have center forwards who divide their time between playmaking and scoring goals like Harry Kane, Wayne Rooney, Gabriel Jesus, Kai Harvertz, Julian Alverez and even Cristiano Ronaldo, especially as a centre forward in Saudi Arabia.
However, centre forwards like Lukaku, Giroud, Erling Haaland and Victor Oshimen hardly playmake in their roles, though they do others things like hold-up plays, aerial duels, runs and even pressing.
However, the case for Cristiano Ronaldo as a playmaker is not based on his smart conversion into a center forward in his twilight years but based on his exploits as a wide advanced playmaker in his prime. A wide advanced playmaker is a footballer that controls the flow of a team attacking plays from the flanks or wide areas.
There are a lot of teams that heavily depend on wide advanced playmakers to create chances and break defense lines based on their tactics. There are also teams that don’t need them based on their playing style.
Bayern Munich needed it with Arjen Robben and Frank Ribery, Real Madrid needed it with first Angel Di Maria and Cristiano Ronaldo, then Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo, and now Vinicius Jr and Rodrygoes. Liverpool needed it with Sadio Mane and Mo Salah. Right now Arsenal needs it with either Trossard and Saka or Martinelli and Saka.
Now, the pertinent question is, did Cristiano Ronaldo do enough to be considered a wide playmaker as a winger? The shortest answer is yes.
There’s no dispute on the fact that Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the greatest wingers of all time, and he reached those heights in his career based on both his skill as a playmaker and goalscorer, while also offering an array of skills and abilities on the pitch.
Maybe it’s hard to remember, but Cristiano Ronaldo was known as a highly talented pure winger before he became a goal scoring machine he is still portrayed as today. Back in 2002, 2003, 2004, you could see the astronomical talent Cristiano Ronaldo had as a footballer, no one, not even the great Sir Alex Ferguson could have predicted that he would turn out to be football’s greatest goalscorer.
So Cristiano Ronaldo has always been a wide advanced playmaker as a winger. He took on defenders, moved the ball forward quickly on the flank to initiate attacks, deliver crosses into the centre from the byline, cut inside to shoot at goal, link-up with central players or lay clever passes into dangerous areas and also combined with his full-back whenever they made overlapping runs.
These are the functions of a wide advanced playmaker and Cristiano Ronaldo did it a lot as a right winger and left winger in Sporting CP, Portugal, Man Utd, Real Madrid and even Juventus.
There’s always a temptation to compare playmakers who operate in the centre of the pitch to wide playmakers, but it’s very wrong because they don’t function the same way. There is a lot of respect for Toni Kroos and Luka Modric as playmakers, but they can’t perform the function of Vinicius Jr on the flanks in the Real Madrid team, and vice versa.
It takes both the central playmakers and the wide playmakers to control the flow of the attacking play. Cristiano Ronaldo has been providing that function as a winger for decades at the top level.
There are lots of football fans and pundits who turn a blind eye to Cristiano Ronaldo’s playmaking abilities because of his goal scoring record, it shouldn’t be like that.
Of course, there is plenty of evidence to support the fact that Cristiano Ronaldo was a playmaker as a winger. Of course, I can’t provide visual evidence for that which is important as football can mostly be enjoyed on visual representation.
But a quick keyword search on YouTube would give you access to several video compilations of Cristiano Ronaldo exhibiting his playmaking abilities just as you would find video compilations of his goal scoring abilities. Here are a few links to these videos.
If you don’t want to look at that or are not satisfied with that, then maybe you should try to look at some of his match highlights from when he was a winger in Man Utd, Portugal, Real Madrid and even Juventus. There are more than 300 videos of that on YouTube to see how he played as a wide advanced playmaker for his team.
There is also statistical evidence to prove Cristiano Ronaldo was a playmaker. In 2019, Opta released a list of top ten chance creators in top 5 leagues in Europe from 2006-2019, and all the players on the list are playmakers, including of course Cristiano Ronaldo who came 9th on the list despite taking the most shots at goal during the same time.
I still don’t understand how a selfish player can still find himself in such a list full of unselfish team players. The list also contained Payet, Ozil, Fabregas, Hazard, David Silva, Lionel Messi, Pjanic, Hamsik, and Juan Mata.
There is a reason why players like Benzema, Suarez, Lewandowski, Ibrahimovic, Higuain and so on who boost quite a lot of assists could not make the list at all. Wingers like Hazard and Cristiano Ronaldo did.
Central Midfielders like Fabregas, Pjanic, Silva and Hamsik made the list. Attacking midfielders and free role players like Messi, Ozil, Payet and Mata also made the list. And out of all these players, it is Cristiano Ronaldo and perhaps Eden Hazard who don’t create chances from set-pieces, so it’s an impressive stats that proves Cristiano Ronaldo is a playmaker. Of course these stats don’t prove how Ronaldo performs in the build up plays, but if you find stats that cater to build-up plays, he’s not going to lag behind either.
The last evidence that proves Cristiano Ronaldo is a playmaker is more like an endorsement from industry critics. International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS) have been recognising players, teams, coaches and even referees for a long time, and they began to recognise playmakers in football starting from 2006 and they are still going strong today. Yes, of course Cristiano Ronaldo has not won any playmaker awards, but only 8 players have won the award in 18 years.
The fact that Cristiano Ronaldo has not won any playmaker awards doesn’t prove anything as top playmakers like Ozil, Pirlo, Bruno Fernandes, Antonie Greizman, Hazard, Neymar, David and Bernardo Silva, Busquets and of course Cristiano Ronaldo have not won, but it doesn’t mean they are not top playmakers.
Even though Cristiano Ronaldo hasn’t won any playmaker award, he’s been ranked among the best playmakers multiple times. In 2020, IFFHS released a list of highest ranked playmakers between 2011-2020, and Cristiano Ronaldo was on the list. He came 12th in a 20-man list of playmakers.
Yes, it’s not high, but it’s proof he was one of the best playmakers in world football as a winger. You have to understand that his position on the best playmaker list came from the fact that he had appeared in several yearly rankings of best playmakers between 2011-2020.
In 2011, he was ranked 5th. In 2012, he was ranked 6th. In 2017, he was ranked 10th and 11th in 2018. He was also ranked 2nd in 2008, 7th in 2009 and 6th in 2010. This means despite not winning the award just like most playmakers haven’t, Cristiano Ronaldo had been recognised as a playmaker by football industry critics.
Of course, we can disavow or discredit IFFHS for including Cristiano Ronaldo as a playmaker multiple times over the years, but that means other playmaker they have recognised, from Messi, to Xavi, Iniesta, Kroos, Modric, Zidane, Ozil, Ronaldinho, Robben, Hazard, Ribery Pirlo, David Silva, Ozil, Payet, Pogba, De Bruyne, Fernandes Antonie Greizman and so on, have to be discredited in totality, with no exceptions. I don’t think we want to do that.
In the list of top goal scorers between 2011-2020 released by IFFHS, the only players that appeared on the list who were also present on best playmakers list are Messi, Ronaldo and Neymar.
Other goal scorers like Ibrahimovic, Benzema, Suarez, Lewandowski, Cavani, were not on the list of playmakers and have never been ranked on the yearly list of best playmakers. So they have a credibility that can be respected, and if they see Cristiano Ronaldo as a playmaker, then he definitely is a playmaker.
None of these evidence brought before you to prove Cristiano Ronaldo is a playmaker is concrete enough in isolation. The video compilations of Cristiano Ronaldo playmaking, his chance creation stats and even being recognised as a playmaker by IFFHS alongside other players can’t mount an indisputable debate on their own.
who is then the most selfish player in football
But if you look at them collectively, they all point a finger to the fact that Cristiano Ronaldo is indeed a playmaker, especially as a winger. It’s not a mistake that these various pieces of evidence exist to prove one singular fact that Cristiano Ronaldo is a playmaker.
Anyone arguing otherwise might as well deny the fact that Messi is a playmaker or argue playmakers don’t exist in football.
So anytime a football fan or pundit says Cristiano Ronaldo is not a playmaker or a pure goalscorer, you have to let them know they have no idea what they are talking about.
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