Ronaldo's actual appearance in the match was merely a token chance for the home fans in Sao Paulo to say goodbye to the striker that helped them dominate for more then a decade on the international scene. Having retired from football back in February Ronaldo clearly did not have the fitness to even play a full half but he came on at the 30 minute mark and played through until the intermission where he was honoured in an emotional send off. He did get involved in a couple of decent chances and a younger version of himself probably would have scored 2 or 3 of them but it was not to be in his final match. Ronaldo is now 34 years old and was able to represent Brazil in the World Cup on 4 different occasions. His 4 trips to the World Cup is an impressive enough feat but when you add to that the fact that he is the greatest scorer in the competition history having netted 15 World Cup goals it is clear that he will long be remembered for his performances on footballs biggest stage.
The Brazilian fans, as well as Ronaldo, were clearly very emotional about saying farewell to each other. That only seems fitting to me since Ronaldo was always at his best when he pulled on the Brazilian shirt. He had a decent club career but it was in that yellow shirt that he really made a name for himself. He scored a total of 67 international goals in the 104 matches that he played which ranks him second all time behind only Pele (who scored an amazing 95). He came into the footballing spotlight in the 1994 World Cup in the United States where as a 17 year old he helped to lead the Brazilians to the title. In 1998 he was back in the finals but this time around Brazil lost to France. In 2002 Ronaldo won his second world cup title in large part due to his performance in the finals against Germany. Ronaldo came back from a knee injury that had him in doubt for the finals and was able to score a pair of goals against the Germans. In 2006 Ronaldo said farewell to the World Cup as Brazil were only able to make it to the quarter finals.
Ronaldo scored 15 World Cup goals, won 2 titles, made another final, and his worst ever finish was as a quarter finalist. That is what he will be best remembered for and his performances at the World Cup assure him a place as one of the greatest strikers of his generation. His club career saw him score another 247 goals in just 343 appearances as he made stops at some of Europe's top clubs including AC Milan, Barcelona, Inter Milan, Real Madrid, and PSV. He also spent time at Cruzeiro where he started his career and he returned to Brazil to end his career at Corinthians. He won basically everything possible in Europe as well as collecting 3 World Players of the Year.
In my humble opinion Ronaldo is the best pure goal scorer that I have seen play during my 20 years of life. I guess I am not going out on a limb at all by saying that but I do consider him as better the Ruud Van Nistelrooy, Pippo Inzaghi, Raul, and Klose. He may have faded away towards the end of his career thanks to fitness issues that resulted from recurring knee injuries and led to him being unkindly referred to as "fat Ronaldo" by some to distinguish him from Cristiano Ronaldo. But in my mind Ronaldo will always be the player who was physically impressive and a dominant force in 4 straight world cups. His scoring marks will be very hard for anyone to surpass and I hope that history remembers him right along with the all time greats including his countrymen Pele.
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