Six foot tall, as strong as an ox and surprisingly quick for a man his size, Ronaldo had it all. He started off at PSV Eindhoven, under Bobby Robson – and eventually moved to Barcelona, where he set the Spanish Liga alight with mind-numbing goals and amazing skill. Another big-money move followed when he moved to Italy to play for Inter Milan. Despite the stifling defensive nature of Italian football, Ronaldo flourished once again, but a move back to Spain wasn’t far away and he became one of the famed ‘Galacticos’ at the Bernabeu when he signed for Real Madrid. 
Despite his successful career at club level, Ronaldo has delivered the goods in even more emphatic fashion at international level. An unused sub in the 1994 World Cup winning squad, Ronaldo was the star of the 1998 World Cup in France, only for a mystery illness to strike him down hours before the final.
He played – but was a shadow of his normal self, and Brazil lost to two Zinedine Zidane goals in the final. He returned in top form in 2002, however, and dominated the tournament in a way not seen since Diego Maradona’s one-man show in 1986.
Since that amazing display in Japan and Korea, Ronaldo’s fitness has been a topic of discussion among football fans. A tad overweight, he can still play, but that zip, that sharpness, seems to have gone. He’s still in his early twenties, so Ronaldo has a long career ahead of him. Whether fortune and fame have dulled his powers remains to be seen, but his performances as a young superstar have already made him one of the world's greats and a legend in Brazil. And with the players they've produced, that takes some doing.