Football

Former English football player compares Ronaldo Nazario with Cristiano Ronaldo

The debate on the Football Greatest of All Time(GOAT) has always been between Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi who have been the most followed footballers in the world. The number of goals scored by these two superstars is unreal and unimaginable to even think about. Both of these players have over 800 goals and have 13 Ballond’ors between them. There is almost no player in the world right now who can beat them on the big stage and break their records. The legacy built by these two greats is close to untouchable at the moment.

There was one player though who was able to come close to them in goal-scoring and that was none other than former Brazilian striker Ronaldo Nazario. He has not only been a two-time World Champion but also has two Balland’ors to his name as well. There is always a question of why Nazario has not had a longer career in his sports career. He has been part of champion teams like Real Madrid and Barcelona and has scored more than 300 goals in his career as well.

Rio Ferdinand on Nazario

Former English defender and football pundit Rio Ferdinand has also shared his views on who he thinks is a better player. He has brought up that Nazario was the best striker he was ever up against and talked about it on his podcast on YouTube mentioning the fitness of Nazario saying that Nazario would have added four more Ballond’ors to his career if he had remained fit and never got injured. These were words suggesting that Ronaldo Nazario would have been 2^nd on the all-time list and ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo if things had gone a different way.

This was a surprising statement since Ferdinand had also played a lot of football with Cristiano Ronaldo when he was starting his career at Old Trafford. This shows that he has given his unbiased opinion on who he thought was the best as well. Some people might not agree with this statement, but let’s not forget that Ferdinand was one of the best defenders ever to grace the field in his time. If there is someone who has faced some of the best players in the world in some of the best matches we have ever seen in Football history.