Šmicer knows what Ronaldo is after: He wants no one to break his records

Former football representative Vladimír Šmicer is among the most successful Czech trophy collectors. He won the Champions League, the UEFA Cup and many other championship and cup competitions in the Czech Republic, England and France.

But Cristiano Ronaldo is, so to speak, in an even higher league in this regard, to which only himself and Lionel Messi, the Argentine prodigy, now in the service of Paris SG, actually belong. In the historical statistics of shooters, we see them in the company of Josef Bican, Ferenc Puskás and Gerd Müller.

Ronaldo aspires to the role of the world’s best footballer of all time alongside Messi, Pelé and Diego Maradona.

Even at the age of 37, Ronaldo has no problem finding the motivation to get out of bed and work hard again. Again and again. He knows he needs it. He is obsessed with the idea of ​​being the absolute best of all. Ideally forever.

“He’s chasing records. He wants to play every game, he wants to score as many goals as possible. So that the records he sets will be unsurpassed forever,” says Vladimír Šmicer in the video, which you can watch under the title of this article.

From this point of view, Ronaldo must evaluate the past week as a failure. He completed the League of Nations duels in the Portuguese jersey. In Prague, his team scored four times, but Ronaldo himself scored only an assist. His team then lost to Spain 0:1 in Braza.

Ronaldo did not increase his collection of 117 goals scored in the jersey of the representative A-team. It is already the largest in history. The second in this order, which is the Iranian Ali Daeí with 109 goals, has already ended his career, but Lionel Messi (90 goals) is still going strong.

For comparison – Ferenc Puskás scored 84 goals for Hungary and later for Spain, the Brazilian Pelé remained at 77. And the only goal behind him is the Polish Robert Lewandowski (76), another then the Brazilian Neymar (75).

The most successful Czech scorer in international matches is Jan Koller (55). And Vladimír Šmicer could boast of 27 accurate shots into the opponents’ nets when meeting with Ronaldo.

The biggest danger to the fulfillment of Ronaldo’s ideal of becoming the best forever probably lies in the Norwegian super talent named Erling Haaland. At the age of 22, he already scored 21 times in the national team jersey.

But at the upcoming World Cup in Qatar, Haaland will not score any goals. Norway did not qualify for the tournament. And at the same time, these big tournaments offer super shooters a welcome chance of up to seven matches, in which they can boost their shooting ego, and thus their balance, again.

Cristiano Ronaldo has already scored in 9 big events in a row. By big events, we mean the world or continental championship. If he adds a tenth bead to this famous string at the World Cup in Qatar, it will be a feat that will be really hard to follow in the future. Unless, perhaps, the frequency of these tournaments would speed up. Now both the EC and the WC are played once every four years.

That’s not enough, Ronaldo clearly plans to participate in the next qualifying cycle as well. Throughout the year, there will be a fight for participation in Euro 2024, the final tournament of which will be organized by Germany. And Ronaldo can probably imagine his start at the 2026 WC, which will be organized by the USA, Canada and Mexico. At that time, Ronaldo will be 41 years old.

Can he maintain the necessary performance even at such an age? And can any builder of the Portuguese team ever say: “Sorry, Cristiano, but leave it to others?”

Vladimír Šmicer says: “Everyone knows that one day the moment will come when he stops playing regularly. They don’t put him in some matches on opponents’ fields already. So that he will be fit and as well prepared as possible for the home games.”

In the club jersey, Ronaldo’s nightmare is already coming true. The individualistically based Ronaldo does not perfectly meet Erik ten Hag’s ideas about teamwork, so CR7 does not fit into the starting line-up in a number of matches and then jumps into the game as a substitute player.

As a substitute, Vladimír Šmicer remembers Ronaldo from their matches in the Premier League. Ronaldo first came to Manchester United in 2003, while Šmicer was playing for Liverpool.

“Alex Ferguson, the United manager at the time, brought him into the team gradually, usually giving him 20-30 minutes. At that time, there was huge competition at United, Yorke and Cole in attack, Beckham and Giggs on the sides,” recalls Šmicer.

However, Ronaldo missed out on Beckham at Old Trafford, he actually came from Sporting Lisbon as a replacement for him. A month after Beckham became a Real Madrid player.

Later, Ronaldo followed him in the same direction. At United, Real and later at Juventus, Turin built another very respectable collection. He has scored 140 goals in the Champions League so far, again the most of all.

But he took it very hard when United failed to qualify for the Champions League by placing in the English competition this May. Cristiano Ronaldo even tried to get a job in the club that will play in the Champions League, but the negotiations were fruitless. And Ronaldo has to suffer in silence when his competitors like Lionel Messi (126 Champions League goals) or Robert Lewandowski (89) can chip away at his lead.

But the experts agree that if anyone can beat Ronaldo in this ranking, then it is Erling Haaland, who is now on 26 hits. And he is only 22 years old.

The partner of the Nahrávka & Nabíječky video series is Hyundai, the official partner of the Czech national football team.