There Is Only One Sinnacle

I’m not sure why I feel the need to give out advice. It isn’t like Ronaldinho hasn’t done just fine on his own but there comes a time when everyone needs a fresh start. Ronaldinho should look no further for that fresh start then North London and I don’t mean Tottenham.

Ronaldinho has won all there is to win in Spain, there comes a point where one needs to move on. It’s been a trying 18 months for Ronaldinho in Barcelona. The press has rightly or wrongly accused him of being fat and lazy. Real Madrid over took from Barcelona at the top of the league and look to repeat that in 2008. Ronaldinho and Barcelona coach Frank Rijkaard have clashed far to often which has resulted in Ronaldinho spending a lot of time on the bench. Right up until his most recent injury spell that sees him currently on the sidelines.

Arsenal need to make a splash if they are going to close the gap on Manchester United in the coming years. While the Gunners are stock full of young promising talent they need a player who has been at the top. Arsenal even have a lack of depth in the attacking midfielder role. Tomas Rosjcky is hurt far too often, Emmanuel Eboue is not a true right winger and while Aliaksandr Hleb is respected he isn’t fear. Teams don’t revolve there game plan around shutting down Hleb. Ronaldinho is just the perfect fit for this team. Arsenal is often compared to the Brazil of English football, they set out to play the beautiful game and few players play it with such beauty as Ronaldinho. He would also be motivated, while he has nothing left to prove at Barcelona he’ll have a lot to prove in England. For all there success Arsenal has never won in Europe, Ronaldinho is tailor made to thrive on the biggest stages of European football.

Ronaldinho isn’t the typical Arsenal transfer by any means since big name signings in the prime of there careers are generally not the type of players Arsenal go for. Arsenal prefer buying young players who they can then mold through there system. That being said if Arsenal go three years without any trophies noises will be made about improving the team. While it seems like Ronaldinho has been around for what it seems like forever as most people remember him breaking into the world’s scene by scoring a wonder goal against England in the 2002 Word Cup he is only 28 years old.

(The video isn’t great but the announcer does his best to make up for it.)

That is still the prime of ones career. Ronaldoinho can have another 3-4 quality years at Arsenal. A link can easily be made between Ronaldoinho current state and last year with Arsenal favorite Thierry Herny. Thierry just didn’t look like his normal self in his last year playing for Arsenal. While Herny’s transfer to Barcelona can’t be considered a success up to this point his move was best for all parties involved. Ronaldoinho is in the same sort of rut at this junction of his career. He can decided to stay with Barcelona and risk being alienated from the team as it appears even when healthy Ronaldoinho has been inserted into the lineup less and less or seek a fresh start.

Barcelona needs to make some decisions as well. With all due respect to Ronaldoinho the future is Lionel Messi. The Barcelona brass need to decide when it is the right time to officially consider him the center piece of the team. No matter how poorly Ronaldoinho plays he would be considered the face of Barcelona as long as he keeps playing for the Spanish giants.

While Barcelona problems run deep this year part of the problem has to be the issue between the current generation of stars and the next generation of stars that the Barcelona youth system produces like a factory. On one hand you have the current crop of players who have lead Barcelona to such glory over the past couple of years such as Ronaldinho, Deco, Xavi, and the young players who are close to breaking through most notably Giovani Dos Santos, and Bojan. At some point all teams have to go out with the old and in with the new. If that is the case then Barcelona will have to do what is best for there future and that is to cash on Ronaldinho which Arsenal being the perfect location.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 4th, 2008 at 10:02 am and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.