The Match That Nearly Killed Ronaldo Nazario

Ronaldo Nazario is one of the greatest players to have ever kicked a ball he achieved an incredible lot and established himself as an all-time great at such a young age at 23 he had already scored over 200 career goals and till date He Still Remains the youngest player to ever win the Balon door and one of the youngest to ever win the World Cup in the '90s he was on top of the world a lethal Striker efficient dribbler and a pure Entertainer but one fateful day in 1998 Ronaldo could really have died on the football

pitch I'm sure we're all now familiar with how injuries pretty much ruined the career of what could have been the greatest player ever he once had an injury which his physiotherapist described as the worst football injury he had ever seen he said Ronaldo's kneecap practically exploded this injury was so bad that it kept the Brazilian sidelined for over a year and hugely affected his performances on the pitch forever but even with how bad all of this sounds it is still not the worst of it all Ronaldo lived through a much worse day and it came

on the 12th of July 1998 that was the Day Brazil met France in the World Cup final you see prior to that game Ronaldo was the best player in the world and the best player at that tournament he had four goals and three assists to his name on the way to that final and despite the fact that France were at home Brazil were always going to be favorites provided they had L phenomeno on the pitch they were defending champ iions and they were ready to actually defend their title against the hosts but those Ambitions were

dealt a huge blow when a little over an hour before kickoff of the final the team Sheet was released and guess what Ronaldo's name was nowhere to be found huh what the heck has just happened here how do you go into the biggest battle of your life without your best soldier well this is where the story truly begins a Ronaldo Les Brazil starting 11 ahead of the World Cup final was the most shocking thing in football that entire year people could not believe what they had seen and many fans did not believe there could even

be any reasonable explanation for it but there was Ronaldo had come face to face with death just hours before the biggest game of his life and it was the scariest thing ever but just minutes before the game he begged to be added back to the lineup he insisted he was okay and wanted to play so he was included much to the Delight of Brazil fans all around the world little did they know that they were getting a completely different Ronaldo Ronaldo was the last player to walk out of the tunnel and he was received by

an uproar of Applause from fans in the stadium and those watching from screens all across the world there was a crowd of 75,000 people in the stadium and a television audience of 1.7 billion some were excited to be thoroughly entertained by the best player in the world While others were scared of the damage he could inflict on their team but neither got what they wanted France started dominating from the very beginning in just the first minute of the game gar attempted a Bic IC Le kick under pressure from bayano but the ball landed on the

top side of the Brazilian net 3 minutes later the same man got another shot on target from a zidan pass but this one was easily handled by tafarel in the Brazil goal 6 minutes in zidan put in a cross into the box from a free kick Jif reached the ball but his header was wide not long after that Jif hit a longrange shot but that also went wide about 22 minutes into the game was when we got our first real sighting of Ronaldo he received the ball on the left wing and sent a cross shot

into the box bares seemed to Fumble it at first but he was able to quickly get it under control in the 24th minute Brazil came close to scoring from a corner kick but although the shot was on target it was a pretty routine save from bz the French Hammer blow then came in the 27th minute Emanuel PTI sent a delicious cross into the box from a corner kick and zidan Rose highest to send the ball into the back of the Brazil net one n France a few minutes later in an attempt to respond quickly to

going down Brazil sent a long ball forward for Ronaldo bares was out quickly to punch but in doing that he collided with Ronaldo who landed on the floor and seemed not to move for some moments Hearts were in mouths when that happened but Ronaldo managed to get up and continue the game after some medical attention anyway France continued to Pepper Brazil's goal in the closing minutes of the first half petite hit the side netting while gar found himself one-on-one with the goalkeeper but tafarel was able to make a nice save Brazil thought they would be

able to take the 1-n deficit into the break but in additional time of the first half zidan scored from another France corner and put the hosts 2-n up the game was slipping away from Brazil's hands they hoped their starm man would come out in the second half and work a miracle for them as he always seemed to do but it was just not Ronaldo's night in the second half had a shot from inside the six-yard box but despite it being a powerful one bares handled it really well Brazil continued to knock though and they were

sort of helped by the sending off of France Center back Marcel Desy in the 68th minute for a second bookable offense this forced the France coach to take off center forward Yuri jorai and bring on holding midfielder Patrick Vieira to try and secure their two-goal lead with 8 minutes left on the clock dugar who had come off the bench had a chance to seal the game for France but he sent his shot wide Off the Mark meanwhile Brazil were very nearly given a glimp of Hope in additional time but Denson's shot hit the woodwork everyone

saw that and thought that was it the game was over France had won 2-0 but this show had an encore 3 minutes of stoppage time were added and in the third minute Vieira put Emanuel PTI through and goal and PTI converted 3-0 now it was game over that was the thousandth goal in the history of the France national team and it was the goal that won France their first ever World Cup [Music] obviously there was a lot of joy in Paris that night France had just won their first ever World Cup on home soil so

that grabbed the headlines but there was also a huge question mark over Ronaldo's performance he was truly a shadow of himself in that game people even said he basically sleepwalked through the game this was just not the Ronaldo the world knew far from it the Brazil coach said that throughout the first half he was contemplating whether or not to take off Ronaldo he further said that the entire team and staff were scared for Ronaldo and it affected them going into that final after the game the man himself said we lost the World Cup but I

won another cup my life now that sounds super serious doesn't it well because it really was it was more serious than anyone thought and when we got to find out what actually happened it all made sense Ronaldo himself narrated that everything was good until he and his teammates had lunch that afternoon he went back to the room he shared with Roberto Carlos and he went to lay down on his bed he thought he had slept but he woke up 10 minutes later to see the doctor and concerned players around him apparently he had suffered a

seizure so the consensus was that there was no way he was going to play in the final professionals said that it was nearly impossible for him to perform at an optimal level within 24 hours of his first convulsive fit but here we were talking about around 3 hours to the game there was no way he was going to play right wrong Ronaldo wasn't listening to all of that he said he felt okay and well and he insisted on playing the starting lineup had already been released without his name on it but he was stubborn about

playing in the final so he insisted and honestly when the best player in the world is telling you he wants to play in the biggest game in football you just have to listen to him the team doctor remarked after the game imagine if I had stopped Ronaldo from playing and Brazil lost at that moment I'd have to go and live on the North Pole this was an issue that was bigger than the doctor bigger than the coach and bigger than everybody involved there was a very long and painful inquest into the defeat and all the

Mysteries around it Don riddle reporting for CNN wrote it's one of the greatest mysteries of our time not the Loch Ness monster Stonehenge or the lost city of Atlantis it's the case of the missing Striker not so much a who done it more a kind of what the heck happened it was a huge mystery and there were a lot of questions asked was it stress was it epilepsy was he drugged what the heck had actually happened we never got answers what we got instead were a lot of conspiracy theories some said that the World Cup

had been fixed for France to win on home soil with some people accusing Brazil of selling the match and some others even went as far as accusing Nike the brand with whom Ronaldo had an endorsement deal of forcing the striker to play that game for commercial reasons the issue was so big that Ronaldo himself had to appear in front of the Brazilian Congress to explain what happened and to pretty much convince them that there was no foul play involved I had a uh a conversion after the lunch uh in the afternoon and I was Inc

conscient for 3 4 minutes do you know why you had this convulsion this fit no nobody knows you know when when when you're there you you breef the competition you everything is about the competition you cannot disconnect from the competition it's a lot of Oppression it was all really crazy but the truth Still Remains that Ronaldo was really brave for playing in that final and even playing the full 90 minutes he practically put his life on the line to help his team he said that he didn't want to miss the team's biggest game because of

a fear that something would happen to him doctor called me to another room and um he explained to me that uh I had a convulsion that um you not play and I say no it's not possible I want to play I will play that right there is what you call bravery like he said they lost the World Cup that day but he won another cup his life the World Cup though would come back around 4 years later this time the reverse was sort of the case Ronaldo had been absent for a very long time leading

up to the 2002 World Cup due to a very nasty injury and many thought he wouldn't be fit for the tournament tournament but he came back took his team to the final and this time he was fully fit and you know what a fully fit Ronaldo did in that game he put two goals past Oliver Khan in the Germany goal to secure the Golden Boot and win Brazil their record fifth World Cup it was redemption in 1998 he lost the World Cup but having gained his life he decided to go back for the World Cup

four years later and he did exactly that with that he established himself as one of the greatest players in World Cup history having won two trophies a golden ball a Golden Boot and scored the most goals in World Cup history at the time but right now where would you rank Ronaldo Nazario in your list of all-time greatest footballers would you have him in your top 10 top five or even top three tell me in the comments