Ronaldo's legacy

[QUOTE=Lucho-the-Legend]It is true that Dinho has had a "playboy" lifestyle off the field, he is brazilian. In defense of his past, at PSG he was in a situation where his skill and contribution were not exploited by the manager. In fact, it is well documented that Dinho has issues with the manager.
In some previous post, it has been noted that Dinho will never reach the level of Ronaldo. First off, Ronaldo has always been a little over-rated and been on teams where he is the only goal scorer. Although he does have a tremendous knack of getting into a goal scoring position, he has always been on teams with great players around him. I am not convinced he would be as effective a player on a sub par team.
Dinho on the other hand has never been on a squad like the ones Ronaldo has been apart of, with the exception of Barca's current squd and maybe the Edgar Davids era.[/QUOTE]

1. If you look at WC2002 most teams played in a situation where they had one pure goalscorer... I did not see anyone else score 8 goals.
2. I admit the Triple R meant good service but I'd venture that it's not necessarily the greatest servive sice 1978 (eg. Brazil in 1986)... yet no one has come close to scoring 8 goals in over 20 years.
3. Barcelona circa Ronaldo were arguably not as good as Barcelona circa Dream Team... but Ronaldo's impact that year was better than anyone in the Dream Team era including Romario's.
4. In 2003-04 the consensus was that it was Casillas and Ronaldo who kept us afloat. The moment Ronaldo lost form, our title chase sank. The consensus was also that neither Ronaldo nor Casillas had much support in terms of either service or defence. But Ronaldo was pretty damn effective on a sub-par team.
5. Yes PSV was a powerful club in Holland but historically PSV is no bigger in Holland than PSG is in France. And you'd be hard proven to prove that the players that surrounded him at PSV were significantly "greater" than Ronaldinho's in PSG. But Ronaldo made the critical difference in terms of taking them to the next level, just as Romario had during his time there. Just look at how Ajax reasserted its dominance soon after Ronaldo left. So I'd say that with comparable quality in terms of a supporting cast, Ronaldo arguably had a greater impact.
6. As you say yourself, though not explicitly, Ronaldinho only came into his own when he had a strong squad around him (Brazil in 02, Barca post-davids and this year). Even in Barca he did not achieve much before Davids came along. So arguably it's Ronaldinho who has a greater need (or at least as great a need) for a strong squad, who "would be not be as effective a player on a sub par team" which by your logic would be indicative of his being overrated.

Now I don't really think Ronaldinho is overrated, I'm just using your arguments to demonstrate that you're not giving Ronaldo his due. I agree on current form he is rubbish but it's pretty much undeniable that until 1998 he was on course to become the greatest forward since Pele (yes I'm certain that if it was not for the injury he would have been greater than Van Basten and Romario , in fact you can still argue that he is greater than them).

Even post injury, he won a world-cup where he scored more goals than anyone has in about half a century, he won us a Spanish league by scoring in almost 7 games in a row towards the end of the season to help us overhaul Sociedad, he got a standing ovation for his genius at Old Trafford after a performance that knocked Man U out of the CL, the sort of spontaneous appreciation from a vanquished team’s supporters that I have not seen for any player in many, many years.

If Ronaldo were to quit the game today he would take his place in the pantheon of legends. Don't let the shadow of his past self you see today cloud you from appreciating the phenomenon he once was. For any Brazil supporter, Ronaldo will always be “il fenomenon” as much as Raul is the Saint of the Bernabeau. We are objective enough to accept they have fallen but will also not accept their legacy being tarnished.