Ronaldo's tunnel vision
Fri Jan 09 09:06AM
When discussing Cristiano Ronaldo's dubious ability on free-kicks yesterday morning, Early Doors mentioned his uncanny knack of hitting the wall.
Little more than an hour later, he did just that in a two-day-old Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano that cost him nearly a fortnight's wages.
On his way to training, Ronaldo's car hit a roadside barrier inside a tunnel and bounced off a wall, leaving a smoking pile of precision Italian engineering by the side of the road.
Mike Riley immediately awarded a penalty and sent the wall off, even though replays showed it made no contact with the player.
As soon as pictures emerged of Ronaldo's wrecked Ferrari, people inevitably started to use the 'D' word.
No, not d***head. Diana.
The similarities between the two crashes were eerie. Well, both involved expensive cars and both took place in a tunnel.
However, while Diana was travelling beside the River Seine in Paris, Ronaldo's crash took place in rather less glamorous surroundings as he scooted under the runway at Manchester Airport.
And Edwin van der Sar was travelling behind in a Bentley rather than a Fiat Uno.
Ronaldo may have grinningly left training at the wheel of his back-up motor, a £150,000 Bentley Continental, but it could have ended up much, much worse.
Early Doors was tickled by the solemn tone of the video on this Manchester Evening News article.
It also features a star turn from Ronaldo's busybody next-door neighbour, who claims "he would have written it off on Monday" had she not armed him with advice on how to drive in cold weather - namely: "don't hit the brakes".
ED might be a curmudgeon, but it wishes death on nobody, least of all Ronaldo who is such a rich source of entertainment. But it can't help but wonder what might have happened had he failed to escape unscathed.
It would have been comfortably the biggest news story of ED's lifetime, knocking 9/11 and the fall of the Berlin Wall into seismically important but celebrity-free obscurity.
It would have resulted in a spontaneous outpouring of grief to dwarf even the aftermath of Diana's death, with Manchester United fans, people with Ronaldo in their fantasy team and fake tan salesmen taking to the streets in mourning.
There is also a very real chance that Elton John would have turned up to sing at his funeral, but the Daily Express's decision to relegate Ronaldo's crash to page 25 suggests it may not have dedicated a decade's worth of front pages to the investigation.
- - -
Happily, Ronaldo is OK and he has so much to live for - not least the chance to emulate the former king of pointless trickery, Denilson.
Once the most expensive player in the world, he is now less famous than his sideways-passing namesake who plays for Arsenal.
Denilson moved to Real Betis for a world record fee in 1998. Remarkably, Betis agreed a fee of £18 million with Sao Paulo before deciding to bump it up to £21m in order to set a new record.
The Spanish club adjudged that the positive publicity from their Guinness Book of Records entry would more than cover the extra £3m outlay.
As it turned out, Denilson was tragically, tragically awful. His only trick was to dance around the ball with a flurry of stepovers and tricks, and hope the defender fell over. Occasionally, it worked but most of the time opponents saw through him like Lucy Pinder's negligee.
He is one of those players who looks great in short clips, but with about as much end product as the British motor industry.
Having proved too rubbish even for MLS side FC Dallas (managed by full-time historical footnote Steve Morrow), Denilson has stooped to the depths of going on trial at Bolton just to remind everyone that he still exists.
Normally, modest clubs are so thrilled to have a big name training with them they fail to realise just how cynical the player is being.
But there was no pulling the wool over Gary Megson's eyes yesterday: "Denilson and his people are using it (the trial) as well because it somehow managed to get on Sky television at the exact time he was arriving into the country. But that's not a problem because Denilson is over here to try and get himself a contract at a football club. And at the moment he's at our club."
Early Doors hopes, in the interests of comedy, that he stays there.
- - -
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Emmanuel Adebayor finally sticks up for Willy Gallas: "He is our big brother, our rock and his behaviour since the armband was taken away proves that. William's indispensable to our team. Someone had to say these things. If he had said nothing, where would we be today." Probably in the top four.
FOREIGN VIEW: Kevin Kuranyi defends the right of his Schalke team-mate Rafinha to continue his night-owl antics: "There's nothing Rafinha can do if his neighbours have nothing better to do than call the police. There are many players who go to bed at 9pm but do not play as well as Rafinha. Just because a Brazilian is partying, it doesn't automatically mean he's getting drunk. "
COMING UP: Full weekend previews including new match stats from every Premier League game. Plus our usual Fantasy column and all manner of other goodies.
#39 I'm proud to be an uncultured bum who has just traded a r\h drive 360 for a bentley. Thanks for lowering the tone with personal insults.
From robbiedavies_07 on Fri Jan 09 10:39AMsmokezone .....she died cos she got in a car with a drunk driver and was too arrogant to wear a seatbelt ! ....you will recall the only survivor was also the only person who wore a seatbelt!
From chrisw7892000 on Fri Jan 09 10:39AMBob,
Post 100 not 91 ..... onwards only allowed 3 strikes or you're out!
From jonathangrosskopf on Fri Jan 09 10:41AMAnnie yeah i saw it last night. Verne is gr8. When him and coolio had to be eachother i think i wet myself. Barrymoore yesterday cracked me up aswell. Wed night was boring but all the others have been tip top.
From jay8my on Fri Jan 09 10:42AMToday ED is slower than a race between Bob and Danny!!
From jay8my on Fri Jan 09 10:44AMpost 101 jonny boy you P RICK go and have @#$% over ya mum
From thedobbo2000 on Fri Jan 09 10:45AM123- so was i!!! well its a long time ago now...lets just shake hands and let thing lie. Must of hurt at the time. I nearly cried when Mayo scored that own goal!!!
From jediknight20001 on Fri Jan 09 10:46AMAlright Jay,
Yeah it’s a very important weekend in the Premier League.
Hard to know what way the game will go, too close to call but hey I’m a scouser so if it ain’t a draw I’d rather Chelsea won. Arsenal and Villa will both win this weekend.
I can only hope Liverpool won’t slip up but I’m pretty confident with Torres back again.And yes if Liverpool win the league I hope its Villa too!
From kevin1985kane on Fri Jan 09 10:47AMHey what you saying about speed young Jason? I maybe old but sstill got it. And could catch you anytime I liked. Not that I expect you'd try to run away much... ;)
From danny_saks on Fri Jan 09 10:47AMI understand that Queen's late lead singer was voted the most influential singer of the last century.
Wonder whether anyone under 30 has ever heard of them? Possibly Bohemian Rapsody!From jonathangrosskopf on Fri Jan 09 10:48AMAnnie - #116 is pure jay8my lol. Dont u mean Coolio got drunk andpissed of michelle. Terry has been brilliant. He handled the whole head of house thing really really well. Coolio is like a 5 year old, good for entertaiment value but full of himself and cant see him lasting long. Yeah La Toya as the jester was AGAIN great stuff from Big Bro.
From jay8my on Fri Jan 09 10:57AMJohnny,
In today's throwaway society where groups come and go, i am just surprised that so many actually have heard of Queen.
Maybe it shows how much dross is on show in 2009 that so many people are going back to the 60's and 70's for their music.From jonathangrosskopf on Fri Jan 09 10:58AMSorry ED - there is no such thing as precision italian engineering - to be accurate, it is called precision Italian junk!
From nickrichco on Fri Jan 09 10:59AMgarbage. utter tripe. i bet you guys are avid viewers of the real hustle and read the sun.
From evanskopite on Fri Jan 09 11:01AMmatty - yeah we were one point ahead of u with that game to go. You scored first, which would of kept u up, but we scored in 2nd half i think to make 1-1...we def would be out of business now if we had gone down, we didnt have a ground (still dont) and had no money (still dont). New ground started getting built last month!!!
From jediknight20001 on Fri Jan 09 11:02AMOkay now ED is slower than a race between James and Jonathan.
Kev Kano - Im hoping The UEFA cup wrecks Villa's chances of finishing in the top 4.From jay8my on Fri Jan 09 11:02AMjonathangrosskopf I understand that Queen's late lead singer was voted the most influential singer of the last century.
Wonder whether anyone under 30 has ever heard of them? Possibly Bohemian Rapsody!jonathangrosskopf - i wonder whethere anyone under 30 is producing music that is actually any good and will stand the test of oh about 6 months...?
From evanskopite on Fri Jan 09 11:03AMdoubt! doubt! doubt!
From jay8my on Fri Jan 09 11:11AMNAE NEED!!!!
From tommihew on Fri Jan 09 11:25AMThere are somereal daft and stupid comments here! WHY?
Let's write a decent piece? ehh?
C.Ronaldo will probably now play well in the 'business end of the season', as he is given another chance in life by the lord!
In my opinion, even Chelsea is not quite the real end of season 'winner-takes-all-game' A good draw will do.
As long as we get maximum points from the games in-hand, and the team stay healthy towards the last 10-15 games, then we will win by a few points.
Their is no key game to worry about, we have played as average as possible this season so far. And are only 1 point behind Liverpool.
Stay positive guys and watch out once, Tevez, Berbatov, Rooney, Ronaldo all click into gear, we will be right and ready for at least a couple of competition wins this year.
Best Wishes
From mpsservices1 on Fri Jan 09 11:26AMnnnnnnnnnnnnnnooooooooooooooooooooooooooooobbbbbbb
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbsssssssssssssssssssssssFrom daniel.harris86 on Fri Jan 09 11:31AM600
From jay8my on Fri Jan 09 11:32AMhttp://www.theunitedgunners.blogspot.com
From iudoka2000 on Fri Jan 09 11:43AMCarefull Annie and Matt or else yo'll get deleted and that would be a shame!
Stop for a mo whilst your comnputers cool down a bit - PLEASE!!!From jonathangrosskopf on Fri Jan 09 11:52AMHAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL(lovely anne,jude,bro fbf,kgh,james,roxy,matty,kk,jay,johnny,jonathan,da
nny,mick and any others whom i might have unknowingly left out).May Peace continue to be the watch word for the new year 2009.Peace
From jacknfor on Fri Jan 09 11:54AMJacknfor go to Cows Corner 19 Dec!
From jonathangrosskopf on Fri Jan 09 12:11PMi found it a bit hard to believe that he manage to escape "unscathed". surely he hurt a bit. Diana's car crash was like that too but she didn't survive... and Diana contributed much more to the world that CR, you know.
From octoberlynn89 on Fri Jan 09 12:13PMBrilliant page as usual! keep up the good work guys!
From wesleybell88 on Fri Jan 09 12:16PMWhere ever I lay my spam??
From andy_lycett on Fri Jan 09 12:20PMDid he cry??
From rafalkruczyk on Fri Jan 09 12:28PM
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