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Down and out season Ronaldo's woes highlighted by Inter's exit
Posted: Thursday March 18, 1999 02:54 PM
MILAN, Italy (Reuters) -- Serious doubts over Ronaldo's ability to shake off his seemingly interminable knee injuries were raised as his club Inter Milan went out of the European Cup on Wednesday. Inter's 3-1 aggregate defeat in the quarterfinals by Manchester United snuffed out their last chance of a trophy this season. Already out of the Italian Cup, they are eighth in the league and have now failed to win in their last nine matches. Coach Mircea Lucescu's gamble of fielding Ronaldo clearly backfired. Inter only truly threatened the United goal once he had been replaced by young Nicola Ventola, scorer of their goal. The growing fear at Inter seems to be that Ronaldo, who joined them for around $50 million from Barcelona in a blaze of publicity in 1997, will never again produce the explosive skills which established him as the world's finest player. He has played only six full matches all season and before the game against United had played just 79 minutes of competitive soccer since his return after a two-month lay-off. Virtually the whole of his season has involved either coming off the bench to test his legs, or leaving the pitch before the final whistle having failed to last a full 90 minutes. He has been striving to regain his fitness in the gym and the swimming pool but looked sluggish against United and was comfortably contained by fullbacks Henning Berg and Jaap Stam. Italian sports daily Gazzetta dello Sport gave Ronaldo 5.5 out of 10 in their regular player assessments, putting him joint bottom of the Inter team list. "A single shot on goal and just one virtuoso turn," the paper lamented. "He gave away the ball too often and above all looked drained of energy." Ronaldo himself said nothing to reporters after the match. The pressure on the Brazilian is intense, with sponsors, the public, his teammates and his coaches at both national and international level all eager to see him on the pitch. But that pressure has also led some observers in Italy to wonder if he will ever find a cure for his tender knees if he is always forced back into action prematurely. Inter now have nothing to play for this season apart from pride and the increasingly remote possibility of a place in the Champions' League next season. Lucescu and Inter president Massimo Moratti will have to decide whether to play Ronaldo in their nine remaining league matches, or send him back to the physios in an effort to have him at his best again for the start of next season's campaign.
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