Thread by @FourFourTweet

He broke the world transfer record twice before his 21st birthday.

He’s the youngest-ever recipient of the Ballon d'Or.

Ronaldo Nazário - the greatest footballer of all time?

A thread.

He joined Social Ramos Athletic indoor futsal team aged 12, and led the city youth league in scoring with a record 166 goals in his first season which included scoring 11 of his team's 12 goals in a single game

He was signed by his agents aged just 13.

Aged 16 he joined Cruzeiro - Ronaldo scored 44 goals in 47 games for the club, leading them to their first Copa do Brasil in 1993, and the Minas Gerais State Championship in 1994.

Romario, who had previously played for PSV, recommended them to Ronaldo, who he chose to join after the 94 World Cup.

During his two seasons at PSV he scored 54 goals in 58 games.

Rudi Völler: “Never in my life have I seen an 18-year-old play in this way.”

Luis Enrique: “I’d seen him on television at PSV and thought ‘wow’. Then he came to Barcelona. He's the most spectacular player I’ve ever seen. He did things I'd never seen before. We’re now used to seeing Messi dribble past six players, but not then. Ronaldo was a beast.”

It was only a matter of time before one of Europe's big boys came knocking - Barcelona paid a then World Record £13.2m for the striker.

He kept up his record of almost a goal a game, scoring a staggering 47 goals in 49 games during the 96/97 season. An insane return.

He also won the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, the Copa del Rey and the Supercopa de España.

That season he was also La Liga top scorer with 34 goals from 37 games - numbers that had never been seen before, until compared with the likes of Messi and Cristiano.

Ronaldo played against Atletico three times that season - he scored 8 times.

Quinton Fortune: “I saw him after the match [when I had to mark him] finished, and that’s the nearest I was to Ronaldo on the night. He was technical, quick, strong and smart. He was a beast."

At the end of 1996, aged 20, Ronaldo became the youngest player to win FIFA World Player of the Year - some achievement for a young skinny lad.

Ronaldo played like a winger - but he did so in the centre of the pitch.

Defences were simply mesmerised. He was unstoppable.

That summer he joined Inter for another World Record fee of £19.2m.

During his first season, he netted 25 Serie A goals, and was named Serie A Footballer of the Year

Halfway through his first season he won FIFA World Player of the Year once again, and collected the Ballon d’Or

Christian Vieri: "Ronaldo and I went clubbing most nights, getting drunk even though we had practice in the morning. While I was gasping for every breath he was there drinking a coffee whilst smiling. He needed no practice - he was the best footballer in the world."

May 6, 1998. The UEFA Cup final. Inter vs. Lazio

That match had been hyped as a meeting between the best attacker and the best defender in Serie A. Inter Milan won the game 3-0.

Alessandro Nesta: “It was the worst experience of my career. There's nothing I could have done.”

Between 1994 and 1999, Ronaldo scored 115 goals in 134 games before his first knee injury.

The first Nike Mercurial boots, R9, were commissioned for Ronaldo in 1998.

Heading into the 1998 World Cup he was the world's in-form striker. En-route to the final, he scored 4 and assisted 3.

Hours before the final he suffered a health scare, clearly not fit to play.

Ronaldo later reflected: "We lost the World Cup but I won another cup – my life."

November 21,1999 he ruptured a tendon in his knee and required surgery.

During his first comeback on 12 April 2000, he played just six minutes during the first leg of the Coppa Italia final against Lazio before suffering a complete rupture of the knee-cap tendons.

The injuries suffered at Inter took away the explosiveness that made him possibly the greatest young footballer of all time.

Such a shame, but he remained a goalscorer upon his return.

Before his career-threatening knee injuries, Ronaldo scored 130 goals in 155 league games all against the ilkes of Maldini, Nesta, Costacurta, Thuram, Roberto Carlos, Hierro, Cafu, Aldair, Blind, De Boer & Mihajlovic.

By the time of first career-threatening injury in 99, Ronaldo (23) had already scored more than 200 goals for Cruzeiro, PSV, Barça, Inter & Brazil.

After two operations, Ronaldo returned for the 2002 World Cup...

He achieved what many thought impossible and helped Brazil win their fifth World Cup title. Netting twice in the final - a Man of the Match performance.

Ronaldo scored against every opponent in the tournament except in the quarter-finals against England.

A move to Real Madrid was next, as part of the Galácticos era.

His debut vs. Alaves, October 2002:

63’: Substituted on
64’: Scored his first Madrid goal

At the back end of 2002, he won the FIFA World Player of the Year award for the third time.

Fast-forward to 2003, In the second leg of Real Madrid's Champions League quarter-final. Ronaldo scored a hat-trick against Man Utd at Old Trafford, knocking them out of the competition.

Ronaldo was substituted on 80mins and was given a standing ovation from both sets of fans.

In four-and-a-half seasons at Madrid, Ronaldo scored over a 100 goals for the club, becoming the fifth foreigner at Madrid to achieve the feat.

He won 7 trophies during his time at the club alongside his third Ballon d’Or.

Departing Real Madrid for AC Milan, Ronaldo had been the club's leading goalscorer for all of his four full seasons.

Despite all his previous success, Ronaldo never managed to win the UEFA Champions League, arguably the best player to never do so.

The only man to have played in the Inter vs. Milan Derby della Madonnina & the Real Madrid vs. Barça Clásico for each side and score for all of them.

February 13 2008, Ronaldo suffered a severe season-ending injury - a third to the same knee he had operated on in 1999 & 2000.

He later retired in 2011 after a brief stint at Corinthians where he admitted his body had succumbed to the injuries he’d suffered during his career.

Gianluigi Buffon: “If it wasn’t for injury I think he would be talked about on the same level as Pelé & Maradona.”

Zlatan: “Ronaldo is the greatest. He was as [good as] Pele."

Bobby Robson: “Had he managed to stay free of injury, he could have been the best footballer ever.”

Kaka: "The best player I played with was Ronaldo Fenômeno. I rate a player for his ability to think and to execute. Cristiano & Ronaldinho are amazing players, but I saw Ronaldo do things that made me think how was that even possible? I wish I played with Zidane too."

Don’t get us wrong, there are players who have achieved more during their careers, but nobody has replicated Ronaldo’s blend of skill, strength, astonishing speed and sheer brilliance on the football pitch.

A legend. An icon.

Some gentle lunch-time reading.