So the "boy wonder" returns to Vila Belmiro after spells at CF Real Madrid in Spain and Manchester City FC in England. It all began for Robinho back in 2002 in his breakthrough season he led the Peixe to their first national title since the days of Pelé. Santos then reached the final of the 2003 Copa Libertadores where Robinho won the Brazilian Hide and Seek championship during the 2 legged final, which was lost to Boca Juniors. Despite leading Santos to another title in 2004 the lure of Europe was too much and Robinho moved to the Spanish capital and CF Real Madrid.
Robinho was to spend 4 years at the Santiago Bernabéu and made 101 appearances scoring 25 goals. Only one league title came during his time at Madrid and that was when he and David Beckham carried the team to the title after spending most of the pre-Christmas part of the season on the bench. He was the used as by CF Real Madrid as part of a move to lure Cristiano Ronaldo to Madrid and instead demanded to join Chelsea FC, at the time being managed by former Seleção trainer Luiz Felipe Scolari, instead it was Mancester City FC who stumped up €42.5million to take him to Eastlands. Robinho never made any secret that Manchester wasn't his preferred destination but managed to put some decent performances in for the club. He made 41 appearances for Manchester City, scoring 14 goals. The final one coming at Scunthorpe at the weekend in the FA Cup, incidentally his first of the season for Manchester City.
Is State League football really going to be good enough for Robinho, the fact he has a minumum of 16 games to play before the Paulista leage season finishes on the 6th April. If Santos fail to make the play offs then it would mean going for 7 weeks without a game until Série A starts in the second week of May but there could be a burn out factor for the player with so many games to play. Then he would play 4 or 5 games maximum in Série A before disappearing to the Seleção for the FIFA World Cup. That could possibly mean Robinho not returning to Santos until the middle of July by which time he will two or three weeks from being on the plane back to Manchester.
The question is, are Santos really going to get their moneys worth out of the player. They have managed to find a sponsor to cover 90% of his wages but that still leaves the club to find circa £16,000 a week. For the amount of game time they could possibly get out of the player is it really worth it?
2 comments:
Frankly, from a city supporter's point of view, who cares. The lad has all the natural fooballing talent int he world but he has no will to fight for his spot, no work ethic to go and work hard ont ehtraining pitch and to work his arse off on the playing pitch, home or away. His away performances for city last season were awful and looked like he had spent the entire night prior shaging until he passed out (completely spent of all energy) and then nearly every apperance for City this season has been abysmal. He wants first team starting oppertunities but is unwilling or maybe unable to work hard for that. He thinks it is his god given right to start. It isn't. I hope he snaps out of it, learns a work ethic that will rival Tevez. If he does and then returns to city, he will truly be rivalling the greatest players ever to play the game. If he doesn't, I predict a run of games where he sits on the Santos bench, being 2nd of 3rd pick behind hungry Brazilian youths.....
Amen to that. CTID.
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