ACTUALITE |
29.06.2002
Ronaldo ready to write final chapter in tale of redemption
YOKOHAMA
Whatever happens here on Sunday, this will have been a World Cup of redemption.
England captain David Beckham, Germany coach Rudi Voller and the entire United States team will all go home happy to have laid their own particular ghosts to rest.
But there has been no more compelling tale than Ronaldo`s liberation from the personal and professional hell he was plunged into four years ago, when he suffered a fit just hours before an unrecognisable Brazil surrendered to France in the final.
What exactly happened in that Paris hotel room four years ago remains shrouded in uncertainty.
That Ronaldo suffered a convulsion, passed out and regained consciousness after being discovered in the middle of the seizure by team-mate Roberto Carlos is not in question. But the question why has yet to be satisfactorily answered.
Various doctors and medical officials have said nothing was wrong with Ronaldo; others that he risked another fit, or even death, by playing.
The first team-sheet issued on that afternoon had Ronaldo listed as a substitute. A quarter of an hour later he was on the field. But it was not the real Ronaldo. Instead the Brazil attack was led by a pale shadow of the joyful talent that had been named world player of the year twice before his 21st birthday.
Whatever the truth about what went on that Sunday, there is no disputing that the subsequent years have been a form of purgatory for a player who is still only 25, as recurring injuries have combined with self-doubt to cast a question mark over whether he would ever reach his old heights again.
After a five-month break following long-overdue knee surgery at the end of 1999, Ronaldo broke down again only minutes into his comeback match, the Italian Cup final.
Three muscle injuries further hampered his comeback but he never gave up.
Inspired by words of advice and encouragement from Pele, who was also written off as a spent force when he missed the 1966 World Cup finals through injury, Ronaldo finally made it back to the national team in March of this year, three years after his last game for his country.
He is still not fully fit, a fact he readily recognises. But the niggles that have left him aching after every match here have not been enough to stop him claiming six goals in six games and lighting up the tournament with that famous toothy grin.
The old Ronaldo may be gone forever but the 2002 version in full flight is still an awesome sight. Just ask the Turkish defence that he singlehandedly sent into paroxysms of panic before scoring the goal that put Brazil into the finals.
With 43 goals in 63 internationals it is not hard to see why they call him the phenomenon back home, but he insists that Brazil winning will mean more to him than any personal glory he harvests along the way.
"Winning the Golden Boot is an honour, a very high mark of achievement and I would be happy to win it," the striker said after his wonderfully opportunist toe-poke sunk Turkey.
"But above all I`m going to be even happier if we win this World Cup. In my head, that is what I`m thinking about now.
"The goal made me feel happy, it`s always a nice feeling to score. But it was not a goal made by me for me. It was a goal of the team, for the team, and it got us into the final."
Ronaldo is confident that the spectre of 1998 will not come back to haunt him on Sunday.
"I don`t want to remember 1998," he said. "I`m totally not thinking about it. This time we want to make a different final with a different end. We are going to play our football, go to the final and hopefully win.
"I don`t want to sit here and dictate to you the two years of suffering I had, but these days, every goal I score is a victory.
"Every time I enter the pitch, it`s a joy, an honour. I can say that my nightmare is over."
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