How I learned to stop worrying and love the misunderstanding

This has been lingering in my mind ever since the rumor about a possible misunderstanding between Cristiano Ronaldo and Gonzalo Higuaín was started by the press. Why cannot it be true? Why can’t they not like each other? As optimistic as I am that nothing of that sort exists, the evil in me refuses to think around the fact that Ronaldo and Higuaín might just not be all that fond of each other as much as we might want them to be. Albeit I have the least bit of materialistic evidence to prove my theory I must say that I am unable to not think why not? Call me insipid but I cannot refrain myself from thinking the way I am thinking right now. I wonder why not, not for the first time today.

As far fetched as it seems here is my argument. Cristiano Ronaldo is just not used to sharing the limelight with anyone around him let alone Gonzalo Higuaín. I am not sure whether it is him or Alex Ferguson who is to be blamed for this defect of his but Ronaldo just loves doing stuff on his own.

I can quote several instances to prove this point of mine. For one, take his last three seasons at Manchester United which saw him emerge as arguably the best player in the World. In 2006-07, Cristiano scored 17 goals for Man United in the league alone but was closely followed by Wayne Rooney with 14 and United managed only the Premier League title. It was the season in which fans all over England booed Ronaldo wherever he went because of the scuffle between him and Rooney in the World Cup prior to the season. Yet, he still managed so many strikes. The next season would become the best 10 months that he has had in his career.

He amassed a whopping 31 goals for them in the league (grabbing 44 in all competitions) while United’s second highest scorer was Carlos Tevez with just 14 goals. United won both the League and the Champions League by just building everything around Cristiano. Even the omnipresent Wayne Rooney was made to play second fiddle to the Portuguese ace and the Englishman seemed quite happy to do so. The next season saw Ronaldo score 18 and Rooney 12 as United won the league yet again and managed to reach the finals of the Champions League where they lost to Barça in a men versus boys game of football. The only United player to shine in the final was indeed Cristiano Ronaldo.

Do you remember the Champions League final in Moscow when Ronaldo missed a penalty against Chelsea in the shootout? The moment United won all that Ronaldo did was weep. It could’ve been tears of joy but what I interpreted was that Ronaldo couldn’t digest the fact that United won the trophy despite his miss. His contribution was deemed insignificant by the end of the day and that itched him. But hell United got so far only because of him. It was his goal that was equalized by Lampard for Chelsea. United depended on him and he loved it. He wanted to carry them on his shoulders and did so successfully when given the chance. Legendary players like Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes didn’t mind it. Equally talented ones like Rooney and Tevez didn’t bother either. And the end result – three premier league titles, a club world cup, a champions league winners medal and a runner-up medal and a league cup. That is what doing stuff the Cristiano way did to Manchester United.

If that is the case with Cristiano then Higuaín’s isn’t any different, except for the silverware part of course. Higuaín has been doing things on his own for us ever since he became a permanent fixture in Real’s line up. In the absence of Van Nistelrooy he was partnered mostly by Raúl in attack the whole of last season who isn’t someone who would fight with you for goals. Raúl is more of a center forward than a central striker and hence there was never a problem as such. Higuaín got all the help that he needed and went on to become our top scorer and one of the positives of last season in what was a very poor season for us otherwise. But with Ronaldo’s arrival it all turned around.

Pipita finally had some competition within the team. He had to earn his place in the line up all over again. Both he and Ronaldo like to be at the end of every assist made. They like to create goals for themselves more than for others. Both of them are greedy by nature – an attribute that almost every great goal scorer has possessed. Also, both are more than talented to score a lot of goals. And thus they often find themselves following the same trail as the other. Isn’t that something that can cause a misunderstanding?

But that is not what the press says is the reason behind this so called misunderstanding. All these rumors kicked off immediately after Higuaín wasted a couple of decent chances to put us ahead against Lyon in the second leg. Ronaldo reacted on the pitch to one of them which any other human would’ve done considering the open space he was in when Pipita chose to take a shot. And that is rubbish. As someone who has played and seen a fair amount of football I can confidently assert that even the calmest of players would beat themselves to react in such a situation. And that is to be branded as a misunderstanding in general then I believe that it is just plain stupidity.

On the other hand, if the press had some theory behind their claims like I have today then maybe I if not the rest of the World would’ve bought it. I say so because there is nothing wrong in such things happening. When you put together a new team these things are bound to happen. The only thing that should be blamed is human nature. And I am totally with Manuel Pellegrini on this issue. I don’t know how true it is but to me it looks as though he has done absolutely nothing about it. The competition between Higuaín and Ronaldo is as healthy as any competition that I’ve seen between two players at Real. These two are fighting it out against each other to prove who is the better goal scorer and who gets more goals for the team. Irrespective of who scores Real end up piling goals which is the only thing that matters. A more clever approach would be to use each other to get to the top. That way people don’t talk ill about you and there is still stuff to fight about. That is exactly what the two are doing now.

And as far as we and the press are concerned instead of cribbing about it we should relish the fact that two of the best players in this World are fighting to score goals for us.

Para Siempre Blanco!

Hala Madrid!!

April 1, 2010 | Categories: Focus | Tags: Cristiano Ronaldo, Gonzalo Higuaín | 4 Comments »