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16.06.2009 Football News

Ronaldo: We`ll miss him when he's gone.

16.06.2009 LISTEN
By Kofi Owusu Aduonum - Ghanaian Chronicle

Love him or loathe him, Cristiano Ronaldo was by far the most glamorous player in the Premiership, embodying the souped up Saint Tropez playboy look to a point that rivals George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley circa Club Tropicana.

This, then, is a man who has no qualms about his disconcerting resemblance to a chipolata sausage.

Then there's the James Dean lip and quiff to consider. Despite – or even because of – the overload of Hawaiian Tropic, the stonewash denim worn long before it came back into fashion and without a trace of irony, and the crucifix that would dwarf the average medallion, he still succeeds in setting hearts – male and female – aflutter like no other. Macho doesn't cover it.

Admittedly, competition is far from fierce. Ask a wannabe WAG which footballer she'd most like to see and be seen with and she's unlikely to say Tevez (bad hair, worse eyebrows), Crouch (weedy by any other name), or Rooney (plain simian, Coleen can keep him). Instead, Ronaldo is the obvious – the only – respectable option. At just 24, he is the quintessential peacock male and not since George Best has any other footballer come close. The trouble is, he's already outgrown the British social scene. Only Ronaldo could be spotted the night before his £80m transfer from Manchester United to Real Madrid was announced, hanging out with Paris and Nicky Hilton in Hollywood.

On a superficial level – the tan the colour of gravy and dress sense that may not unreasonably be described as disastrous makes him all the more appealing – there's so much a woman of style could do for him. After all, he has so much to learn. Then there's the fact he behaves like football's biggest baby bringing out the protective mother in anyone with half a heart – women the world over yearn to look after Ronaldo the way David Seaman, for example, looks like he might look after them. Yawn. Related articles

Ronaldo's unswerving petulance, his tantrums and bare-faced cheek, not to mention the fact that (almost unbelievably) he wears his baseball cap back to front makes for a heady formula that is well-nigh impossible to resist. His status as a bad boy has done him no harm either – from setting up the opposition and winking at the sidelines when he succeeds in so doing to smashing up Ferraris. Ronaldo is modern day football's rebel. And today they are few and far between.

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