Ronaldo: Fat Big-Boned, Angry, and Left Out

By: Martha | March 9th, 2007

Mmm ... burgers. It’s been a bummer of a week for Ronaldo so far. First, he was cup-tied and couldn’t help Milan in their desperate efforts to break through against Celtic. Then a reporter asked him a question that got under his skin, and he proceeded to get rather nasty about former coach Fabio Capello. As seems to be the growing trend among players who return to Serie A after time abroad, all Ronaldo’s problems at his last club were the gaffer’s fault.

In this case, Capello is to blame because “his way of dealing with his players is not up-to-date.” (Left unsaid was the fact that Ronaldo ate because of his dismay at Capello’s “authoritarian” ways, but if you read between the lines, it’s totally there.) Ronaldo also found a little time to blame former Inter manager Hector Cuper for his departure from that club, because he, too, was old-fashioned. Even worse than Capello, if such a thing is possible. See, people, all you need to do is just never tell him what do to (read: coach him), and Ronaldo will be fine. Is that really too much to ask?

There’s been no word from Capello on the matter, but Brazil manager Dunga is evidently unimpressed, because he’s elected to leave El Gordo out of his side for the upcoming friendlies against Chile and Ghana (the games will be played in Sweden, so there are no travels for the Europe-based players). The great thing about Dunga’s decision is that he’s not offering the “Oh, you know. It’s a friendly, we’re messing around.” excuses we often hear when major players are not selected. Instead, he’s essentially told the press that Ronaldo just isn’t good enough right now: “We are watching and observing him and as soon as his performances interest us and he is near to his best, he will be selected.” Damn — hard to misinterpret that. (Also left out were Dida and “injured” party-boy Adriano.)

After all that, however, there was one positive that came out of this dismal week: Ronaldo promised to do a nude photo shoot, to put an end to all this “Fatty! Fat! Fat!” talk. Boy, can’t wait for that.