Hated and feted: Who can ever replace Cristiano Ronaldo?

The former United winger was the Premier League's supreme irritant – but there are still a few pretenders to his crown
Manchester United winger Cristiano Ronaldo takes a breather during the match against Chelsea
Cristiano Ronaldo will no longer grace the Premier League with his petulance. Photograph: John Peters/Man Utd via Getty Images

It is common to hear people in the media talking about a footballer being "the sort of player the fans will pay money to watch". Football supporting is not a passive business, however. Most fans don't pay to watch. They pay to participate. To chant and point and turn red in the face with the self-righteous wrath of someone who has just blown the family holiday budget to keep a bunch of preening prima donna millionaires in chest wax and emerald encrusted manbags.


It is impossible, of course, to compare players from different eras. There will doubtless be those who will tell you that had the likes of John Giles or Franny Lee enjoyed the benefits of the modern game - multi-angle TV replays, 24-hour rolling waffle, Hello! wedding exclusives, luxury apartment developments in Mozambique, jojoba-scented hair gel and Louis Vuitton posing pouches - they could have generated a tidal wave of bile that would sweep Rio Ferdinand straight off the upper deck and have Robbie Savage kicking and screaming to get on a lifeboat.

That may be so, but while nostalgists can point to the way we all used to chant "Does your missus know you're here?" at Peter Shilton, chuckle at the donkey braying that once accompanied the Arsenal captain Tony Adams' every touch and speculate on how much louder the singing of "Georgie Best superstar/walks like a woman and he wears a bra" might have been in the age of Twitter and Tim Lovejoy (two things which seem strangely linked, if you ask me), we can only work with the facts we have.

Ronaldo is the supreme irritant of his generation, a brilliant combination of boy-band vanity, ball skills, winks, wealth, tabloid kiss-and-tells, dives, Ferrari write-offs, dead-ball wallops and lower-lip jutting seven-year-old-denied-a-pound-for-the-Kinder-egg-machine petulance of a type that, frankly, you can hone with practice, but never actually teach. Pure and simple, the boy is a one-off. When God made him he broke the mould, probably with a big hammer and a great angry yell of frustration.

In other sports there are certain protagonists who revel in their notoriety, who feed off the animosity of the crowd. The boxer Héctor 'Macho' Camacho, for example. A world champion at four weight categories, the Puerto Rican pugilist once quipped: "My girlfriend boos me when we make love because she knows it turns me on." Chris Eubank and Naseem Hamed were likewise energised by the anger their posturing provoked. And it's hard to imagine Merv Hughes wasn't fired up by the taunts of "Sumo" that used to accompany him around English cricket grounds.

In football, though, players have been altogether reluctant to take on the role of what - in the grand old days of British wrestling - was known as The Heel. The Heel's job was to antagonise the audience, to get their blood pumping with a combination of preening, whining and cheating. Mick McManus, Brian 'Goldbelt' Maxine and Adrian 'The Blond Bombshell' Street were masters of their craft: devious, vain and prone to histrionics and camp posturing.

Only one great player in history, Diego Maradona, has ever really ventured down this path. Reacting to the whistling and jeering of the northern Italian crowds during the 1990 World Cup finals, the Argentinian simply stared into the TV cameras and mouthed the words "sons of whores", happy in the knowledge that a second or so later this considered response would be broadcast on the stadium big screen.

And then along came Ronaldo. Here at last was a man who relished the part of pantomime villain. The wink in Germany, the prolonged flirtation with Madrid, the Tesco's panties, were all the work of a man who, had his almost amphibian sense of hairlessness not totally precluded it, would surely have twirled the end of his moustache while emitting a wicked cackle.

How will the Premier League replace him? At one time a big-money signing from the continent might have filled the Ronaldo gap. Giants of the past such as fuming Bulgarian Hristo Stoichkov, stroppy middle-finger flicking German Stefan Effenberg or even the volcanic Paraguayan goalkeeper José Luis Chilavert might all have done a good job of keeping the homefires of rage burning. These days arguably only Barcelona's Zlatan Ibrahimovic has the necessary combination of talent, tantrums, tattoos and overelaborate alicebands to do the job, and - despite the overtures of Sir Alex Ferguson - the Swede was markedly reluctant to go to Old Trafford, perhaps sensing that he had already been to finishing school at Inter under Jose Mourinho, a coach whose capacity to irritate suggests he may have been a wasp in a previous life.

Since Ibrahimovic resisted a move to United, Sir Alex will be putting a lot of faith in Dimitar Berbatov. Many, however, feel the languid Bulgar just doesn't have the drive necessary consistently to annoy people at the highest level - well, if you ignore fans of the club he plays for, anyway.

Homegrown talent, meanwhile, is lamentably thin on the ground. Joey Barton might have done a job for us but he appears lost to the Premier League and, should that popular bugbear of an earlier generation, Alan 'Elbows' Shearer, eventually take over at Newcastle, may not even get much of an outing in the Championship either.

Craig Bellamy seems likely to have slipped too far down the pecking order at Manchester City to generate much invective. And besides, while hitting a team-mate with a golf club, throwing a chair at a coach and getting into a shouting match with fans were all splendid efforts, to be honest the Welshman hasn't really got the skill or the looks for the job.

Which leaves a hell of a burden on the shoulders of Ashley Cole. Don't get me wrong, the lad has done brilliantly so far, and the vomit-in-the-taxi incident showed a touch of true genius. Cole has been described as self-centred, spiteful and woefully out of touch with reality. The next nine months will give him his big chance to prove the critics right. Let's hope he grasps it, preferably in an off-hand manner with a scowl of disappointment.

A good tradition of love and hate

Ashley Cole

The Cashley tag was earned by that laughable account of his distress at Arsenal's £55,000-a-week offer and the way he wheedled a move to Chelsea. His blindness to how others perceive his posturing and his treatment of his 'national treasure' wife means even Chelsea fans are yet to warm to him.

Robbie Savage

More of a pantomime villain than a midfielder. It isn't so much his fouls as his inability to take what he dished out that sticks in most fans' craws. The whingeing, bling-brandishing and constant hair titivating don't help much either.

Dennis Wise

Gianfranco Zola's one blindspot is his affection for his feisty former Chelsea captain, who, long after retirement, continues to be a hate figure, Newcastle fans being the latest recruits. Worse than the 'tackles', off-field fisticuffs and ear-bashing of referees, however, was that shit-eating grin. Everything people north of Watford hate about the archetypal brash southerner.

Billy Bremner

In the tunnel before a Leeds v Spurs game, Don Revie's captain walked up to Jimmy Greaves and kicked him on the shin. 'What you done that for, Bill?' Greaves asked. 'Felt like it,' said Bremner. Loved by Leeds and Scotland fans, loathed by everyone else, he was seen as the orchestrator of Leeds' lawlessness - spiteful, partial to gamesmanship and violent tackles. A great player but booed everywhere bar Leeds and Hampden from 1964-76.

Emlyn Hughes

Adored by Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley, despised by almost everyone else. He wasn't even popular in his own dressing room although he was a fantastic player. It was more about what he said than what he did and his high-pitched complaints, cocksure manner, Scotland-baiting, right-wing politics and knitwear won him scores of enemies.