Ex-Brazil international Ronaldo Luís Nazário de Lima will announce his immediate retirement from football tomorrow in a team press conference, according to several reports out of Brazil. The striker, widely regarded as one of the best players in football history, racked up more than 400 goals in a glittering career, including 219 while playing for top-level European teams. After exploding onto the world stage with Barcelona in the mid-90s following a successful spell at PSV Eindhoven in the Dutch Eredivisie, Ronaldo cemented his place as a world superstar with a superlative performance in the 1998 World Cup (marred somewhat by an epileptic fit before the final), followed by an even stronger display in 2002, where his international career was capped by scoring both goals in Brazil's 2-0 win over Germany in the final.
Ronaldo To Announce Retirement From Football
Ronaldo has graced most of the best teams in Serie A and La Liga, including Real Madrid and both Milan sides, but following a serious knee injury incurred with AC Milan in 2008 he withdrew from the European leagues and made his way back to Brazil with Corinthians. He was due to retire at the end of the current season, but further injury troubles as well as a lack of form have plagued the striker so far this year and he is now set to announce his immediate retirement. Ronaldo told Brazilian newspaper O Estado de São Paulo that he was ready to quit:
I would like to carry on, but I can’t do it anymore... The time has come, but [my career] was really beautiful. I think about what I want to do on the pitch, but I can’t execute it in the way that I want to.
Ronaldo hasn’t be at his best for some years, but during the late 90s and early portion of the decade, he was the most feared striker in the world, combining supreme skill with surprising speed, strength and brilliant finishing ability. In a nine-year span between 1996 and 2005, he averaged a goal every 1.49 games, all while playing in the best leagues the world had to offer. Although weight and fitness problems plagued his late career, Ronaldo still has a very strong case for being the best striker in recent history, and his amazing displays in two World Cups will live long in the memory.
