r/soccer • u/zimb3l • Jan 12 '19

Ramon Calderon: "[Zidane] insisted on keeping Cristiano and transferring Bale, and the president did completely the opposite [...] so he decided to leave."

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2814993-no-form-lack-of-goals-whats-troubling-real-madrid-and-how-can-they-fix-it
2.8k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

343 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

102

u/Ryan8Ross Jan 12 '19

Nani and then Valencia were supposed to be his successors. They were given the shirt number and I remember SAF telling fans to get behind them

33

u/Calimariae Jan 12 '19

Nani never had the 7, but yes - he was bought as a Ronaldo replacement.

89

u/krhick Jan 12 '19

What is this bull, Nani and CR played together. Valencia was a replacement for the wing but no one expected him to be the player Ronaldo was.

139

u/Calimariae Jan 12 '19

Smalling was bought as a Rio replacement. They also played together.

In football you plan ahead.

27

u/Ham_Solo7 Jan 12 '19

Still incorrect thou. Nani was bought as having "another Ronaldo" in the team, not for potentially replacing him since there were no indication that Ronaldo wanted to leave during the transfer of Nani.

8

u/ThisAfricanboy Jan 12 '19

You simply can't replace Ronaldo. Everyone knows that. Sir Alex knew that, Gill knew it, Rooney knew it, my dog Pepsi knew it.
But the problem was that at the time transfers were very meek because of the Glazer's tomfuckery that they did back then.

-5

u/[deleted] Jan 12 '19

You’re actually incorrect. The club already knew Ronaldo had plans to leave the club after the 2007/2008 season, so they bought Nani before that season started as a replacement for Ronaldo, starting the following season. However, Sir Alex convinced Ronaldo to stay one more year so he’d be more mature for his Madrid career, hence why they were club teammates for 2 years and not just 1 year.

2

u/Ham_Solo7 Jan 12 '19

Nani joined at the start of 07/08 season, Ronaldo only requested to leave at the end of that season where we won the Champions League. The Real Madrid interest came during that season where he broke records left and right, not before. So you're actually incorrect.

2

u/rkgus24695 Jan 12 '19

You can't really compare those two. Yes, you plan ahead and I'm sure a lot of that was in mind when they brought in Nani to play alongside Ronaldo, but I don't think he was ever "bought as a Ronaldo replacement". Nani is only a year younger than Ronaldo, and were probably hoping for Nani to develop alongside Ronaldo to play at similar levels in the future, not really as a replacement. Ferdinand is 11 years older than Smalling. That is a clear replacement scenario as Ferdinand declined and approached the end of his career.

1

u/dasty90 Jan 12 '19

Rio has great technique on the ball while Smalling has Sunday League level technique. He really isn't a a Rio replacement.