Brazilian footballer Ronaldo pulls curtain on glittering international career
By ANIMonday, February 14, 2011
SYDNEY - Brazil’s two-time World Cup winning striker Ronaldo has retired from international football citing injury and fitness concerns.
Ronaldo, who played 97 international matches for Brazil - amassing 62 goals, was part of the squad that won the 1994 and 2002 World Cups.
During the 2006 World Cup, he became the highest goalscorer in the history of the World Cup with his fifteenth goal, surpassing Gerd M�ller’s previous record of 14.
“I can’t take any more. I wanted to continue, but I can’t do it any more. I think of an action, but I can’t do it the way I want to. It’s time,” the Herald Sun quoted Ronaldo, as saying.
The 34-year-old was one of the most prolific scorers in the world in the late 1990s and the early 2000s.
He had won his first Ballon d’Or as the European Footballer of the Year in 1997, and again won the award in 2002.
He is also one of only two men to have won the FIFA Player of the Year award three times, along with French footballer Zinedine Zidane.
In 2007, Ronaldo was named as one of the best starting eleven of all-time by France Football and was named to the FIFA 100, a list of the greatest footballers compiled by fellow countryman Pele.
In 2010, he was voted Goal.com’s ‘Player of the Decade’ in an online poll, gathering 43.63 percent of all votes, and was also included as Centre Forward in the ‘Team of the Decade’. (ANI)
