So Far, So Good for Zlatan and C-Ron

By: Daryl | September 25th, 2009

You know how sometimes big money transfers don’t work out? I’m thinking Andriy Shevchenko at Chelsea, Juan Sebastian Veron at Man Utd, Denilson at Real Betis etcetera. Well, there were some who thought Barcelona’s signing of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Real Madrid’s signing of Cristiano Ronaldo could fall into that category. Myself sort of included (especially on C-Ron).

The logic went that Zlatan wasn’t a natural goalscorer and couldn’t spearhead the Barca trident like Eto’o had. The logic also said that Cristiano Ronaldo would believe his own hype and revert to his old one-thousand-stepovers-and-no-result ways once he touched down in Madrid, a notion C-Ron seemed to confirm with that weird Paris Hilton business.

But sometimes the logic is wrong, and it turns out expensive footballers are actually very good at the thing they get paid to do.

So far Zlatan has looked every inch the goalscorer. Rather than slowing down Barcelona’s tak-tak-tak passing, he’s been on the end of those moves and finding the net. This goal against Racing Santander on Tuesday…

…means Zlatan had scored in all four of Barcelona’s La Liga games so far this season. Not too shabby.

Likewise, Cristiano Ronaldo has made a fast start at Real Madrid, scoring five goals in his first four league games (plus a couple extra in the Champions League). Against Villarreal on Wednesday…

..CR9 needed about 90 seconds to dribble through yellow-shirted defenders and find the bottom corner.

Things will get tougher for these two no doubt, and will be fascinating to see if Zlatan can finally turn it on in the Champions League knockout rounds next year (assuming Barca make it of course). But so far, neither club can have any complaints about their big summer signings.

Some Related Stories:

Category: World Football

« Daily Dose: September 24th, 2009 | Home | Ending The Career Of An Opponent On Live Television? Bad Idea. »

The Offside RSS Feeds

skateboard

there is little left over,what can we miss and what can we catch Skateboard Shoes
bamboo torches

don't hesitate to catch the nice time
bamboo torches
Weston (@wpazzurri)

they are both disgusting, let them enjoy themselves now bc neither of them will make the WC come this summer. let them enjoy the goals and the money now, and then they can watch some real footballers like iaquinta in south africa from their gold-studded couches in spain.
Toys

dont miss it
RC GP cars
jc

Ronaldo looks like a midget in front of Zlatan!
EPL Guru

Visit;

WELOVEPREMIERLEAGUE.BLOGSPOT.COM

for more info and predictions on EPL!
Chainsaw

Zlatan had only once clear chance against Barca and he missed it. But in sites like Goal.com they keep mentioning he had 3!! I don't get it. I even left a comment in that article about this but it never showed up, although many other stupids comments did. I don't understand this. Seems media just looking for some fairy tale stories to just put more fuel to the fading flame.
Luka

"natural goalscorer" - by this, the English press probably mean he doesn't score tap-ins. You see, the traditionalist English supporter (probably) much rather prefers their striker to be on the end of a team goal rather than creating something out of nothing. Zlatan is a magician, he doesn't pick crumbs off the floor, he makes an elephant appear from behind a 2m high curtain.
Tommy Wong

Anything that comes out of the English media has to be taken with a grain of salt. Ibra has scored some spectacular goals in the CL, but not the knockout round. You don't score in every single game you play in. That's just the game.
OhYes

Ibra had a couple of chances against Inter..just too bad he couldn't finish properly. And it was still early. He had been missing easy chances against weaker teams in la Liga, as well.

Too early to tell if he is the CL/big-team-fop most think he is, but logistically, I think that's very false for the reasons Ryan mentioned.
MAD

Really? My guess is that the English press under-estimate teams from other countries, considering the hype that led up to the last CL final.
Chainsaw

Many players have scored in CL knock out stages. Zlatan is not worse than all of them for sure. That's just a stats, just like what they say abou him that he's not man of big matches! That's BS. He scored against AC Milan, AS Roma, Fiorentina. CL is another story. He has been in teams that were horrbile in CL in the last 5 years.
Ryan

I find it interesting that no one says anything about the rest of the team in regards to Ibra's CL performances. Inter's attempt last year could not be blamed on him "not performing." When your lousy team can't get you the ball, or hold it in the midfield, what's the guy supposed to do?

I think this stint at Barca will finally shut the doubters up.
Daryl

My guess is that the English press base a lot of their opinion on what they see in the Champions League.
MAD

I don't know of anyone who said that Zlatan isn't a natural goalscorer - on continental Europe.

In fact, quite the opposite was said. He can score in bunches, just not against top level opponents and not after the group stage of the Champions League.

That was the knock against him when he was a part of Juventus and Inter.

The only people who said that he couldn't score was the English press, who are the only group not to hold him in pretty high regard - besides Juventus supporters who somehow feel that he betrayed them.