The Day I Played with Ronaldo

After Inter Milan defeated Juventus, they made a long comment.

"Ronaldo is still the best striker in the world, bar none. Facing Juventus's world-class defense, he scored an explosive goal in an almost unsolvable way to help Inter Milan open the scoring. Although it is already an old tune Afterwards, we still have to emphasize again that Ronaldo is no longer 'Pelé's successor', he is Ronnie, he is an alien, he is a phenomenon, he has become part of history."

"We should also pay attention to Ricardo's strong performance in the game. With an assist and a direct free kick, Ricardo continued his outstanding performance after joining Inter Milan. Let's look at his statistics: He played a total of 10 times in the league and the Champions League, including 6 starting appearances, with a total playing time of 671 minutes. In these 671 minutes, he completed 29 shots, 17 shots on target, and a shot accuracy rate of 58%. scored 31% of goals, completed 27 key passes and contributed 12 assists. He averaged 4.7 dribbles per game, and the dribble success rate reached 90%.”

"There are very few South American players who can perform so shockingly when they first enter Serie A. Ronaldo was no more than that when he first landed in Serie A, but Ronaldo was already 21 years old. Ricciardo was only 18 years old. I can't imagine. What kind of future is waiting for him. Now, he is regarded as Ronaldo's successor, and is known as 'Ronaldo's younger brother'. Maybe a few years later, he will write his own legend, and Ronaldo is called 'Ricardo's brother'."

"With a transfer fee of 20 million US dollars, Inter Milan made a good deal, and it is basically certain that this is the best transfer operation in Serie A in the summer transfer window of the 2004-05 season, and even the most successful transfer in Europe. Operation. As long as the three Brazilian players, Ronaldo, Ricardo, and Adriano, can maintain their current state, Inter Milan has the possibility of aspiring to the league championship, and even hopes to make a breakthrough in the Champions League. , Their best record in recent years is the top four, and this year they are expected to go further. But the premise is that Mancini must immediately improve his defense."

"The number of goals conceded by Inter Milan this season is not like a strong team at all. There are many problems in their defense. They have gained too many draws, which affects their ranking in the league. In fact, Inter Milan has many Excellent defensive players, what Mancini has to do is to build them into a solid defensive system, rather than let them blindly rely on their personal ability to defend in the game."

"If the quality of Inter Milan's defense can improve, Inter Milan will be a strong contender this season in the league, the Champions League and the Coppa Italia."

...

Li Carduo naturally also saw this article. But contrary to the point of view in this article, he believes that Mancini is unable to transform the team's defense and should focus more on offense.

It's not that he doesn't think defense is unimportant. In modern football, defense is far more important than offense. But Mancini is not good at defense at all, no matter how hard he tries, the team's defensive quality will be difficult to improve, so it is better to work hard on offense.

The opponent enters one, and I enter two. If the opponent enters 2, I will enter 4. Carry out the vigorous offensive football to the end, even if you die, you must die with dignity. If you risk everything, you may succeed instead.

Ricardo felt that it seemed that Mancini's current thinking was like this.

However, the offensive thinking under Mancini's coaching is still relatively chaotic. The midfielders mainly rely on their familiarity and understanding with each other to cooperate. To be honest, Inter Milan lacks a midfield organizer like Harvey and Pirlo.

Veron does have this skill, but if he doesn't pass the ball to Brazilian players, what can he do?

And Emre's confrontation ability is too poor,

Spirituality is gradually disappearing; Stankovic and Cambiasso both lack a little spirituality; Davis' state has declined sharply; "White Davis" C. Zanetti has been reduced to a fringe player who is not reliable.

Inter Milan's midfield seems to be full of talents, but none of them can carry the banner of organizing offense. This situation will not be corrected until many years later when Sneijder joins.

From the 97-98 season until Sneijder joined in 2009, Inter Milan's tactics have always been simple and crude: midfielders and defenders intercept the ball, and then hand it over to those super forwards to solve the battle.

In another time and space, from Zamorano, Ronaldo, Roberto Baggio, Vieri, Recoba, Crespo, to later Adriano, Martins, Ibrahimovic, Milito, Eto'o, and Inter Milan have always had the best strikers in the world, but they lack a good midfielder who can fully stimulate the abilities of these strikers.

Ricardo can't solve this chronic problem of Inter Milan. He has a certain organizational ability, but it is absolutely impossible to compare with professional organizers such as Harvey, Pirlo, and Sneijder. He's better at attacking.

So, so, then give full play to your strengths and use offense to destroy your opponents!

After a home win over Juventus, Inter's rest of 2004 went well.

In the UEFA Champions League, Inter Milan defeated Anderlecht 4:0 at home on December 7, successfully qualifying as the first in the group.

In the league, Messina was bloodbathed 6:0 at home, Siena was defeated 4:2 away, and Brescia was defeated 2:0 at home.

Ricardo started all 4 games. Although his performance was not as sharp as before, he was also well received. He contributed 1 goal and 3 assists in 4 games. It is worth noting that all three of his assists were given to Ronaldo.

Ronaldo played crazy, scoring 7 goals in 4 games, he is simply a walking scoring machine.

In an interview, Ronaldo attributed his good state to Ricardo: "Ricci can always pass the ball that makes me very comfortable. He is the person who knows me best. He is familiar with my way of playing. As long as one With just one look, he knows what I'm going to do. And he's so good at breaking through, creating chances in impossible places. With him around, I just need to focus on scoring goals, which happens to be my goal. good at."

In the 16th round of the league game, although Ronaldo was suspended for more than a month due to injury, he still scored a terrifying 14 goals, temporarily ranking first in the scorer list.

After the game against Brescia, the team entered the winter break. Ronaldo turned down many commercials and TV programs, and returned to Brazil with Ricardo for Christmas.