Ronaldo Heading Back to Brazil

December 26th, 2007 | by: Daryl | Comments Off

Ronaldo’s career-rejuvenating move to AC Milan isn’t quite going as planned is it? Despite an encouraging end to last season the now afro-sporting striker has only played one Serie A game for Milan this season and is battling some oddly persistent thigh and calf injuries. Now rumour has it that the buck-toothed wonder could be heading back to Brazil to play for Flamengo. Milan a little foolishly payed £5 million to Real Madrid for Ronaldo last January, despite it being obvious that his best days, if not his best haircuts, were behind him and the club may be looking to recoup some of that squandered cash. For Ronaldo’s part he’s fast running out of time. At 31, he needs to get his career back on track.

Flamengo seem confident of getting a deal done, with vice-president Kleber Leite told Italian newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport “We have made contact with the player and we are certain he can launch his career again here.” Milan are stalling, saying they want to keep Ronaldo if he can get fit and stay fit. Which he probably won’t.

If this deal goes through Ronaldo will be joining his buddy Adriano in the Brazilian league. Inter Milan’s Adriano recently signed a six month loan deal with Sao Paulo, meaning both members of Brazil’s tubby World Cup 2006 strikeforce would be back in domestic Brazilian football. Adriano’s problems are different to Ronaldo’s. He’s a younger player with a lot more to prove, but hasn’t made a great start to life at Sao Paulo, being spotted out and about recently necking cans of Skol with both Ronaldo and Edmundo (who’s just been let go by Palmeiras) which doesn’t exactly scream professionalism.

If Ronaldo continues to fade then it’s not the end of the world. He’s wowed us all since he was 17 and it may just be that his body has seen enough. At the very least it will be interesting to see him playing in Brazil again. But Adriano is a ridiculously talented striker who still needs to deliver on his potential, so he really can’t afford to screw up his Sao Paulo loan deal. We’ll see what happens when the Campeonato Paulista kicks off in January.