July 12 - Ronaldo-Gate | On This Football Day

IT’S one of football’s biggest ever mysteries: what happened to Ronaldo today in 1998 before the World Cup final? The world’s most deadly striker was supposed to land Brazil their second consecutive title, but instead wandered around the pitch looking like he had no idea what was going on as France romped to their first World Cup win.

The tournament in France had been a lively affair, with Zinedine Zidane lighting up the competition and the home nations sticking to tradition with heart-breaking penalty losses or limp group stage exits.

Defending champions Brazil meanwhile, had reached the final after two close contests against Denmark and the Netherlands, with Ronaldo scoring four times on the way to the Golden Ball trophy for best player in the tournament.

Aime Jacquet’s French team had won praise for it’s multi-cultural roots, as his side that featured players from all across the French colonies joining together to provide Les Blues’ fans with some of the best football they had ever seen.

Shortly before the kick-off in the Stade de France confusing messages began to emerge from the Brazilian dressing room. Ronaldo was initially left out of the starting XI, only for his name to reappear on the teamsheet just before the two sides emerged onto the field following Brazil’s failure to warm-up on the pitch.

Rumours spread around the stadium like wildfire, as conspiracy theorists had a field day. Early reports suggested an ankle injury, the next that he had an upset stomach. Those with a more active imagination suggested the player had been poisoned, but eventually the team doctor Lidio Toledo revealed that Ronaldo had suffered a convulsion in his sleep.

Toledo claimed that he performed neurological and cardiac tests that passed the striker fit to play, but many believed that team sponsors Nike had leaned on the Selecao and forced them to play their star man in an argument that even reached the Brazilian parliament.

Lead by an inspired performance from Zidane, who bagged a brace, France won 3-0 sparking scenes of celebration across the nation. Whether a fully-fit Ronaldo, who was undoubtedly the best striker in the world at the time, would have made the difference we’ll never know, but the man himself was felling pretty philosophical about the whole affair. “We lost the World Cup, but I won another cup - my life,” he would later say.

See the highlights from the final below and why not have a gander at what we were up to last year, when one of the biggest names of English football bowed out.