So Cristano Ronaldo was named European Footballer of the year the other day, which is fair. I don't see an argument against, Messi had a stop, start season due to injury and never won anything anyway, Torres only really played well during the second half of last season and didn't win anything at club level. Ronaldo scored 42 goals and won the League and Champions League double. I'm not defending him in regards to that decision because, frankly, there is no need. I'm here to defend his character, people have this view of him as an arrogant, selfish primadonna. The kind of guy whose antics make us ashamed to be football fans.

Well let's start with the diving and the whining. Does he do it? Yes he does, but why is he the one picked out? Why can Shaun Wright-Phillips dive against Manchester United at the weekend and nothing be done about it? Why can John Terry try and pull a red card out of a referees hand and nobody say a word? Just the other day on Match of the Day Alan Shearer praised Fuller for diving against Hull. I don't understand, I mean I really don't and would love for an explanation. But the pinnacle of this nonesence came last week during Champions League game when Ronaldo was accused by Eamon Dunphy and Johnny Giles on RTE, Graeme Souness on Sky and Stan Collymore on Talksport for diving and getting another player sent off.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=-zpGItBnvMU

The incident happens at about 6:25 into the video [sorry, shortest I could find, or be bothered to find]. The ball is on the ground, the guy goes in studs showing at knee height, with the wrong leg and takes him down, you can see the stud marks on his leg. Yet Ronaldo is vilified. All four talk about how football should be played in the right spirit and the right. Dunphy defended Roy Keane for what he did to Harland, Giles has broken legs and threatened to break more, Souness was a thug, and Collymore? Well I won't go into details because children might read this.

He gets compared to greats like George Best and Maradonna and people go into a rage because these two would never get up to the antics Ronaldo does. Of course Ronaldo isn't an alcoholic wife beater, who drunk his liver to oblivion, got a new one and drunk that to death as well. Somebody died for him to get that liver and somebody who would have shown the kind of respect a gesture like that deserves didn't get it. Mardonna is famous for the Hand of god and was a cocaine user. Oh but they never dived or asked for more money.

People then compare him to Messi, and say what a great land Messi is, he wouldn't do anything that makes you feel ashamed.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport...icle1895920.ece

So in closing, lay the fuck off him. He's the best player in the world, on his way to becoming an all time great and we should all feel privileged to have a player of this abliity playing in the Premiership, because a talent like Ronaldo is rare.