Considerate talk丨 Not recognized as the first, but always self-proclaimed the first James Ronaldo is unique
When summing up his career, the 38-year-old Ronaldo once again confidently believes that he is the "first man" in football. This confidence is surprisingly similar to the expression expressed by basketball superstar James a few days ago. Interestingly, the two can "copy each other" in many places, they both have wonderful careers and achievements, they are both eligible to participate in the "first person" discussion, and they are both controversial because they directly believe that Lao Tzu is the first in the world.
Written by Yu Ruiyin
Editor丨 Feng Xiao
From the "6" return to "23" to the "retirement conditions" mentioned when ESPY accepted the award, James is still a favorite in the media headlines in the offseason. After playing his 20th professional season, when Old Zhan, who was still waiting to meet his eldest son in the NBA, talked about the decision that touched the nerves of the entire basketball world, the standard answer he gave was: "When I can't bring anything to the game, I'm over." ”
At the end, he did not forget to add lightly: "You are so lucky, that day was not today." ”
Caption: James won ESPY's Best Record-Breaking Performance Award, and family and friends came to celebrate.
James is "won't go", while Ronaldo is "won't go back". Born 2 months later than James, after Riyadh's victorious defeat to Celta, he confirmed that he could not go to the European top league at the age of 38, and still forced his Portuguese national team career - "the king of the number of goals scored by the Portuguese national team and the Champions League", "the first man" and "unique"...
Caption: Ronaldo led the team to defeat Celta, but still did not forget to flaunt his greatness.
As he spoke, Ronaldo himself signaled that "there is no need to continue." This is just the right amount of complacency, and James has a fight.
Whoever says this in the field of basketball and football will inevitably attract the question of "how can he be decent"; Only James and Ronaldo will make us sigh "hateful, let him pretend again". These two 38-year-old men, in addition to their personal and team historical records, seem to exude extremely similar charm on and off the field and in their gestures - they are also good bodies created by hesitating huge investment + extreme self-discipline, and they are also the diversified development of business empires outside the field; And occasionally, as long as they are qualified to say pretend quotes, they are also part of their unique personalities.
Since surpassing Abdul-Jabbar to become the number one player in the all-time scoring list last season, James seems to have not shy away from sensitive topics such as historical evaluation after retirement and even the GOAT dispute with Jordan. Just this year, he bluntly declared through social media: "I should be the first on everyone's list." When I'm no longer there, we'll see what happens. Although he did not mention his comparison with Jordan and other GOAT candidates, it has a sense of "never born old, eternal like a long night".
Caption: James social media said: "I should be the first place on everyone's list. ”
Compared with James's American straightforwardness, Ronaldo's European rhetoric is much richer. From paying tribute to Nietzsche's "love makes me stronger, hate makes me unstoppable" to comparing himself to the sun, "It is my light that troubles people, and only insects attack the shining light". He seemed to have built a world where he was a warrior, a king, and a sun, so that even people who didn't like him could shake their heads and smile and say, "Well, not exactly self-boasting." ”
In that sense, they are all unique. Born in the 1980s, when the world was undergoing drastic changes, and famous at the turn of the old and new centuries, he was angular and flamboyant, far from our stereotypes of those who are "excellent in both character and learning" in the traditional sense. Yigao people are bold, and their hearts and tempers are also big. Because he is indeed extremely powerful, he is also accustomed to the aura of the male protagonist who dominates everything and kills all sides. However, as age inevitably ages, when one's control over the people and things around him gradually diminishes, the loneliness with anger and anger also makes people feel pity.
Such a protagonist is destined to take a lonely road from beginning to end. On the arduous road to the top, only a few can keep up with them; Heroes are still in the shadows of their twilight, because they continue to have a peak competitive level that is much longer than their peers, but they also have to pretend to be calm and let younger talents surpass themselves.
Suddenly, you will find that the lack of awe, disrespect, poisonous tongue, crazy output, and even punching (or other weapons) in the early years of James and Ronaldo are more like an infinitely enhanced version of the problems that we "can't get used to" in James and Ronaldo in the early years. Times have changed - at the embarrassing moment when Ronaldo was cosplayed by Brat, "Zen Master" Jackson sarcastically surrounded James with a group of horseboys, all like old people of the previous era, facing the incompetent fury of the so-called loss of tradition. But on the field today, James and Ronaldo's maverick behavior when they were young has become the mainstream, and unlike them, they have absolute strength support.
Ronaldo is not recognized as the first person in history, and even at the same time he was only "one of the best two".
But these only became a footnote to the achievements of James and Ronaldo in the end. In the battle for GOAT in their respective fields, they are only "the first place on the list of some people" (to change the original words of Old Zhan). James's positioning is relatively clear, after all, Jordan's sealing god is closer to mainstream public opinion; When it comes to Jen Sr., most celebrities are just holding the assumption that if he can win another championship for the Lakers, he may be able to sit on two and one side. But if that day does occur, I believe that such controversy will continue. As for Ronaldo, after experiencing two generations of rarely controversial football kings such as Pele and Maradona, and the brilliant generation represented by Zidane and Da Luo, he seems to be only "one of the best two" in his generation. What's more, after Messi dreamed of the World Cup in Qatar, and he himself fell out with Manchester United and stayed away from Europe, the balance quietly changed...
He is not recognized as the first person, but he has never forgotten to consider himself the first person, and has never stopped chasing the name of "first person", which is not false. Arrogance with unwillingness, superhuman stubbornness mixed with mortal strength, let us become familiar with James and Ronaldo hovering between man and God. Such they are more real and concrete, not "unique", more like "unique".
Whether for commercial gain or spiritual attributes, basketball and football need the era of God, and the miracles created by the times. But after the generation of leaders such as James and Ronaldo have aged, it is not difficult to find the fault line of "God". We're still talking about who is the future face of the sport, Doncic, Mbappe, and Haaland, but it's hard to have a hero who surprises the sport as revolutionary. Perhaps it is the ultimate pursuit of speed and power, making more players into a standard product out of a mold; Perhaps James, Ronaldo and more predecessors exhausted all the possibilities of the sport, so that everything after that was just imitation, but could not be surpassed...
Caption: Let's pay tribute to the twilight performance of two 38-year-old men!
Fortunately, the two "unique" indomitable souls continue to enjoy the strength, heart and willingness of the protagonist's aura in the spotlight at the age of 38. Even if I don't know if this performance that illuminates an era will come to an abrupt end one day, the hero will eventually be late, and the princes will cherish it very much.