He is regarded as one of the greatest players to ever played the beautiful game—in fact, he’s officially the second best footballer on the planet, behind Lionel Messi. Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo has once before, named the best player in the world, and that was during his second final season with Manchester United—but after tasting that glory, he’s determined to reclaim the top-most individual prize that any professional footballers dreams about. In Africa, players have a tendency of believing in external powers in form of Juju [witchcraft] to enhance their performances, and that it can actually help them realize their dream. Yet for Ronaldo, since he can’t go for Juju to be able to challenge Messi for the top prize, the Portuguese star has gone for technological help and it looks like it could achieve the desired effect. With the help of his footwear sponsors, Nike, Ronaldo’s challenge to reclaim his position as the world’s best footballer is being given a boost by an unusual footwear design that aims to fool his opponents. Perhaps after realizing that there is no way he could ever surpass (again) his Argentine rival by merely working hard and inventing new natural tricks to beat opponents, Ronaldo and his people have gone a step too far. Messi is being tipped to win the Fifa Ballon D’Or for the third year running, and with the kind of form he’s exhibiting this season, it will come as no surprise if he retains it next year, for the fourth consecutive time, provided his team wins either the Spanish league or Champions League or even both. To win the La Liga or Champions league, Ronaldo and Real Madrid need to perform extra-ordinarily better than their old rivals and defending champions, yet doing that is not a simple task, so something out of the ordinary had to be done. And what better way than enhancing their star performer’s form. It as been revealed that Ronaldo’s form this season has been boosted by special disguised technology created by Nike, which takes away one method opposing defenders use to stop him. It’s believed that his new ‘Nike CR Mercurial Vapor Superfly III’ creates the illusion that Ronaldo is about to turn in one direction, when actually his feet are about to move a different way. Ummm, isn’t this cheating? “The movement of feet is something a lot of players are looking to see,” explained Nike designer Andrew Caine in an interview with ThePostGame.com. “If you are a defender looking at Cristiano, you are going to visually see which way his body is going to move to combat him. So the idea of having a play on the visual makes it a little bit more difficult to understand and read the body’s moves to see where he will go. Visual deception is the play on this one. Nike started off with how would the former World Player of the Year look on the wing and how would he look from different perspectives on the field. The results have been impressive, helping him to score 22 goals in as many appearances, but he had his worst game of the season as Real Madrid’s 15-game winning streak was brought to a halt by Barcelona’s dazzling 3-1 victory at the Bernabeu. That performance from the Spanish and European champions once again put Messi as the clear favorite for the Fifa Ballon D’Or award, with Ronaldo most likely to finish second once again. nku78@yahoo.com
