I saw the news last week of Cristiano Ronaldo’s son unveiling as a Manchester United player and I could not help but chuckle.
I believe Cristiano junior will flop as a Manchester United player and as a footballer too. I saw this from history and not because I really know or understand how he plays as a footballer.
The poverty mentality
Football, as they say is a poor man’s game. Poor people on the streets and the ghetto usually kick the ball around, improve on it, are scouted, and then see it as a way out of poverty.
Maybe, more than 90% of footballers worldwide came out of poverty, abject poverty. The fact that they looked behind them at where they were coming from would have been their greatest motivation to play and give it their best. Most of their sons, if not all, are born into riches and have not really been bothered about football.
I have searched a list of the world’s greatest footballers, I mean the GOATs in the last one hundred years and I am yet to find a son who played as good as his father or half as good as his father.
Pele’s fist son, Edinho, tried his hands as a goalkeeper at Santos, but struggled for most of his career. He failed. His second son, Joshua, also tried at Santos, but did not go past the youth set up.
Diego Armando Maradona Sinagra is the son of the great Diego Maradona, but he never blossomed past the youth set up at Napoli and Genoa. He flopped as a footballer.
I have searched on and on and have not found the son a truly great footballers going as far as his father. And this list include Just Fontaine, Eusebio Da Silva Du Perreira, Zico, Michel Platini, Johan Cryuff etc.
{From Just Fointaine to Eusebio, Zico to Platini, or Cryuff, I am yet to see a son who has been as good as his father. }
A few exceptions
There are indeed a few exceptions of top players who had sons that played football to the top.
In the Netherlands, there have been Danny and Daley Blind; there is Cesare and Paulo Maldini in Italy, and of course, Enrico and Federico Chiesa, still in Italy.
Hey! Our friends, in Ghana will mention Abedi Pele Ayew and his sons, Andre and Jordan
In Nigeria there have been Barnabas Imenger and his son, Nanen and then Dominic Iorfa and his son, but these do not rank to the level of Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Pele, Maradona, Michel Platini. All these greats never groomed their sons to the levels they reached.
Can Cristiano Junior break the jinx?
Cristiano Ronaldo himself had a mother who was a cook, and his father who was a gardener. He possibly did not have the luxuries of life and saw football as a ‘get out of poverty’ card. He must have been totally dedicated to succeeding as a footballer. The fact that he is still going strong at his age shows how much he must have disciplined himself growing up.
Unfortunately, Junior does not need to play football; at least not for money. He doesn’t need to unless he really wants to. I cannot wait to see how he can motivate himself to play with all the riches and affluence around him.
Junior will have to fight the demons that have bedevilled other sons of great footballers and must be really determined to succeed as a footballer, a professional one.
When he is weak and frustrated, will he throw in the extra effort, or go home to play FIFA game on PlayStation? When he is dropped from the youth team of Manchester United for a game, will he put in extra training hours?
Time will tell, but chances are, he may not make it to the level his father got to, not even close. The motivation levels are very different.
