Cristiano Ronaldo vs Jeremy Lynch: One of These Men Plays for Man Utd

By: Daryl | April 27th, 2009

I’ve always been fascinated by freestyle footballers. Specifically: How do guys with so much talent fail to make it as professional footballers?

Above is Jeremy Lynch comparing skills with Mr Cristiano Ronaldo (to promote Rio Ferdinand’s #5 magazine).

As mentioned in this Britain’s Got Talent 2008 video, Lynch was with Arsenal as a youngster until he was let go:

It seems somehow unfair that two men with comparable ball control have such differing Wikipedia entries. Cristiano Ronaldo’s looks like this, while Lynch’s looks more like this:

There’s probably a massive clue in the fact that C-Ron chooses to do his tricks on the floor, while most freestylers do theirs in the air. Maybe that’s the dividing line between pros and freestylers? In which case, I see a promising freestyle career for young Kerlon.

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Category: World Football

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bobby_digital

i think jeremy lynch may have played as a youth player at arsenal.. but im not sure...

But basically building off of what Jones was saying, the 'freestyle' skills and tricks are a certain skill set that you can learn to master or just know how to do..similar to learning anything with practice. But it doesn't necessarily translate to being as skilled on the actual field. I've played with a couple of guys who can do all these tricks but on the field they arent anything special. Obviously you need to have amazing ball control to pull these moves off but ball control can only get you so far if thats the only thing you can do on the field.. If you cant deliver an accurate pass or strike the ball or tackle or understand movement or head the ball or play quick touches or etc..... then youre not of much use...

Because it is very rare in a game situation that you'll actually have time and space to sit there and do these tricks...
Felix

Whu is C-Ron wearing a ManU top with the number 10 on it?
Javier

This is awesome. What skill by Lynch. I like watching videos such as this. Comparing a pro to some unknown footie freestyler.
Jones

It is a funny thing in a way, but ball control is only one skill - ideally a pro should also have (some combination of) vision, timing, speed, strength, be able to strike a dead ball, tackling ability, knack for taking chances, etc. I imagine there are also enough people with perfect pitch who aren't cut out to be great songwriters.

Maybe someone should get a Harlem Globetrotters style team of these guys together though. :)