World Cup Legends: A geniune phenomenon 🇧🇷 | OneFootball

As the 2022 World Cup approaches, we are running through 10 of the biggest legends in World Cup history and how exactly they wrote their names into the history books.

Click here to read about all the legends we have singled out so far.

Ronaldo (Brazil)

Before the 1998 World Cup, Nike released an iconic advert. You know the one, with Brazil’s star players displaying their outrageous skills in an airport lounge.

A tall, lean Ronaldo – who was then playing his club football in Italy with Inter – smiles, displaying a cheeky gap in his front teeth, undoes his kitbag and pulls out a ball.

Assisted by his team-mates, the then-21-year-old dribbles, turns, flicks the ball through various obstacles in the airport. And just like on the pitch, no-one can keep up.

The advert ends with Ronaldo curling a delicate shot onto a makeshift post, in reality it was an airport security barrier. His starring role is indicative of Ronaldo’s superstar status at the time, he was almost unanimously considered the world’s best footballer going into the 1998 tournament.

Once the tournament began, Ronaldo bagged four goals and provided three assists en route to a final showdown with host nation France.

And for those watching at home, reports emerged that the number nine was not going to play, a notion that was completely unthinkable at the time.

Rumours swirled and, at the last minute, Ronaldo appeared on the team sheet, and the whole incident became the subject of conspiracy theories. In truth, the Brazilian had suffered a fit in the hotel hours before the match and was not remotely ready to play.

Ronaldo, and Brazil, lost 3-0 and the next World Cup was four long years and a series of serious knee injuries away. As 2002 approached, Ronaldo had barely played for two years. Some of the striker’s explosive pace had been lost, but his incredible talent was intact.

Two operations and some serious rehab later, and he was ready to take on the world again in Japan and South Korea in 2002.

Ronaldo lit up that tournament, scoring six on the way to the final, arriving at the showpiece match with a bizarre but now-iconic haircut, and then scored both goals to down Germany and lead Brazil to a record-breaking fifth World Cup trophy.

“I used to visualise the trophy in front of my eyes and imagine what a wonderful feeling it must be to hold it up in the air,” the striker said afterwards. “It was a fabulous feeling actually to hold it in my hands and kiss it.”

It was a just reward for one of the greatest players the world had ever seen, a feat that would not be repeated in Ronaldo’s final World Cup in 2006.

Brazil were knocked out in the quarter-finals by their old rivals France, a solitary goal from Thierry Henry sending them back home to South America.

Ronaldo – in his final years at Real Madrid by this time – was jeered and criticised for being overweight and slow, but still finished the tournament with the Bronze Shoe even though his side had suffered that early exit.

His strike against Ghana in the Round of 16 was his fifteenth World Cup goal, a record at the time, and he still sits in second place in the all-time list behind Miroslav Klose with 16.

Ronaldo earned that tally in just 19 games, whereas Klose took 24 total matches to add that one extra strike that puts him at the top of the tree.

“The best player I have ever played with? That’s Ronaldo,” admitted teammate Kaká. “I have seen Il Fenomeno do things that nobody else has ever done.”

Anyone that remembers him will undoubtedly agree that Ronaldo was one of the World Cup’s brightest, biggest and very best ever stars.

And the star of arguably the World Cup’s best ever advert, too.