Ronaldirino, neighbourino
Friday, October 20, 2006
Ronaldo (yes, THE Ronaldo) will be Bart's and Lisa's soccer coach in an upcoming episode of The Simpsons. I can't find any version of the news in the English cyber world, so for now it is just a rumour of the
Spanish and Brazilian press.
Ronaldo, who? For the last six months, Ronaldo has been on the field for about 30 minutes of official play for Real Madrid, and he has done nothing but run around in circles. I could have done Ronaldo's job for the last six months, i.e., not playing soccer and running around the field.
Professional soccer athletes are at high risk of the type of injuries that put them off line for weeks at a time. Some players are weaker than others, and Ronaldo is very injury prone and seems to be side lined every time you look for him on the field. It's really too bad, because he's a phenomenal player when he is not fat and not injured.
Being a professional soccer player is probably one of the best jobs in the world (beside software development, of course). For starters, you make a living playing soccer, and if you are really good at it you can make a bit of extra cash (millions of dollars in endorsements) by wearing branded merchandise. And better yet, even when you don't play for 6 months at a time you still get astronomical amounts of money, in the form of underserved* salary, just for your name alone.
Look at Beckham, for example, he has been bench-warming at Real Madrid for a few weeks now and he is still being paid his regular salary and is still getting endorsement money. There is a little problem for Adidas, though. Adidas has invested on his playing, winning image and banked on Beckham to play every game so that their shoes are seeing scoring goals. Trust me, it can't be good for their image with him on the bench. I can only imagine the new slogan: "If you are not good enough any more to play professionaly, wear Adidas to warm up the benches of the best clubs in the world."
I shouldn't be too critical, but it is just the way the industry works. However, these guys are the best players in the world, and we expect a bit of extra effort from their part. They should score 10 goals per game :)
By the way, I'm a professional software developer and looking to endorse a few products--email me if you want me to code in style while wearing/using whatever apparel you want me to pimp around. I can do shoes, clothes, gloves, sport drinks, etc., etc. My slogan: "Geeky, never looked so kool and extra-
1337. Yeah, baby."
Hey, someone's at the door. Oh good, it's a couple of marketing dudes high up in the chain of command with a couple of T-shirts and bags of money for me. Bench warming glory, here I come...
* Undeserved may be a debateable point, as he gets injured while playing for the team. However, as a player who doesn't play, should a player get paid? I guess you can look at it as workers compensation. Oh, well.
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