Messi will be hard pressed to top this Ronaldo supershow


By Martin Samuel


Beat that, Leo. It is going to take some display if Lionel Messi is to revise opinions at Stamford Bridge tonight. It is going to take some performance to convince those attending Manchester United’s annihilation of Arsenal that they were not already witness to the greatest player in the world.

Memories of Cristiano Ronaldo’s display at the Emirates Stadium will be hard to erase. He was masterful, compelling, unstoppable, a tour de force as a striker, operating with the wit of a winger.

To think there were once doubts about his ability to influence the biggest games. He scored twice here, an outrageous free-kick from 41 yards (to improve on his goal in open play from 39 yards in Porto), and a second which involved a precise back-heel, a lung-bursting dash from end to end, and a perfect finish. It may have been the goal of the season; indeed he could yet have that competition to himself.


Crowning glory: Ronaldo brilliantly clips home United's third goal at the end of a scintillating move

There is a stellar cast supposedly lined up to replace Ronaldo in the event of his summer departure to Real Madrid, but the contenders all have one problem: they are not him.





They cannot lead the line like a centre forward, they cannot score 42 goals in one season, they are unlikely to finish top of the Premier League goalscoring table, where Ronaldo presently resides. Nor will they bury stunning free-kicks from distance like he does, either: because few players can; not even David Beckham, who was among the
awed United followers looking on in wonderment as Ronaldo ripped Arsenal apart.

Franck Ribery, the France winger tipped to leave Bayern Munich for a figure in the region of ?50million, is among those linked to United, as is Kaka of AC Milan, and agents will be working like stink to facilitate this summer money-go-round.

Ribery and Kaka are certainly great players. They are not, however, the greatest player and neither is Messi, yet, because until he turns in a defining performance to propel his team to the greatest occasion in club football, the title will reside with the man in the No 7 shirt for United, who returns a for a consecutive Champions League final in Rome.






Pretenders to the crown: Messi and Ribery


There are pretenders and challengers to Ronaldo, but none hit the heights with such consistency. Messi was shut out of Barcelona’s game with Chelsea in a manner that would not happen to Ronaldo. Not now. Those days, those disappointments, are long past.

Ribery’s name is advanced as Ronaldo’s replacement this summer and this is harmless fun, all part of football’s delicious cycle of speculation, dream teams played out in the head and over pints in the pub; but back in the real world, why would United even consider such a transaction, why him and why now?

One look at sorry Real Madrid will reveal why they fantasise over signing Ronaldo, but one look at Ronaldo will reveal why, unless Sir Alex Ferguson indulges in football’s
greatest act of munificence, they have not a snowflake in hell’s chance of acquiring him.

This has not been Ronaldo’s best season, but only by comparison to the incredible standards he set a year ago. Any other player who had pulled his team through in the title race — Federico Macheda drew the headlines, but without Ronaldo’s goals against Aston Villa, his efforts would have been redundant — and scored vital goals in the important rounds of the Champions League against Inter Milan, Porto and now
Arsenal would be feted.


Strike a pose: Ronaldo was in imperious at the Emirates

Ronaldo’s reward all season has been to have his commitment questioned and his attitude criticised. Some of this he has brought on himself, some stems from the very English sport of finding fault. Ronaldo does not like being kicked. (Who does?) Ronaldo is temperamental. (Name a truly great player who was not).

The gravest calumny, the biggest deceit, is that we would not miss him if he was gone. To be replaced by what, exactly? Another Joey Barton? Another grotesque, another thug, another honest toiler.

The problem with football is that there are not enough players like Ronaldo.There are not enough players who can be scintillating out wide one moment, terrifying through the middle the next, who can stand over a free-kick or a loose ball 40 yards for goal and have observers consider it a goalscoring opportunity, who can do what Ronaldo did to Arsenal last night and ruin them with a strike as audacious as the free-kick scored by Paul Gascoigne for Tottenham Hotspur in the 1991 FA Cup semi-final.




So extravagant is his long range shooting these days that anything from the 30-yard mark might be considered a tap-in. Compared to the velocity of Ronaldo’s shot, Manuel Almunia’s dive appeared to take place in slow motion, like a stunt in a trailer for a James Bond film. By the time he stretched his arms out to grasp at empty air, the ball was already rebounding off the back of the net towards him.


Slow motion: Almunia was helpless to prevent the opener

One fact is inescapable. United are returning for a second consecutive Champions League final and not since Valencia in 2000 and 2001 has this happened (although the club lost both times).

If United are victorious, they will be the first team to win consecutive finals in the Champions League era. And this will have been achieved with Ronaldo, not Ribery or Kaka, or even Messi.

So take a good look, missus, and Viva Ronaldo, because there may never be another.