Robson de Souza who is commonly known as Robinho worldwide is one of the unearthed grassroots talents who was personally recommended and acclaimed by the great Brazilian Football Legend Pele to be his successor who would lead Brazil to its glory days. At a certain point, Pele even considered Robinho to be a better player than him where skillset and game sense has to be considered. Most of the eSports players who have been playing FIFA 08,09,10 would be knowing the types of averages Robinho would be averaging when he was in his tenure with Real Madrid and Manchester City, but what happened to his career and how did he not reach to his full potential.
It was in the early 2000s a younger Robinho started making waves back at Santos FC where he surprised the Legends and the Scouts all around the globe with the skillset which he was carrying with himself at such a young age. When Robinho turned 18 and entered in his 1st year as a professional player, he leads Santos FC to a Brazilian Championship for the 1st time after the year 1965 where Pele was playing during that year. Into his 2nd year, he scored 32 goals in 35 appearances and lead Santos FC to another championship. All the scouts around the globe got behind this emerging star to sign up for their club. Santos FC already knew that keeping Robinho would be difficult a lot of footballing giants were after him to sign for them. Eventually, Real Madrid strikes gold and signed him for €24 million.
There’s a saying, ‘With great powers come great responsibilities’. As Robinho already had set standards for himself, he arrived at Real Madrid with a lot to carry on his shoulders where he was offered No. 10 T-Shirt who was previously owned by Luis Figo. But now the real challenge had started to sink in, he was just not able to cope up with the quality of football the Spanish League had. He was not able to get accustomed to the game pace at Madrid. During his 4 year tenure at Real Madrid, he just scored 35 goals in almost 140 appearances which were very under par in accordance with the quality he possessed at Santos FC. Another major problem he faced was injuries which started off in 2007 where he suffered a knee injury when he was playing for Brazil when he was in his 2nd-year contract with Madrid.
With a merely disappointing tenure with Real Madrid, Robinho was signed up by Manchester City who was brought in by an Arab Investment Company named Abu Dhabi United Group where he was signed for about €41–42 million. A spent 2 seasons with the Club where he was plagued with a lot of injuries where he scored just 16 goals in 53 appearances. He then moved back to the basics at Santos FC on a 6-month loan deal.
He then moved to AC Milan for a fee believed to be about €18 million where he again got a knee injury in his 1st year with the club. Therefore he stated at AC Milan as a substitute and unfit due to his knee issues and eventually left AC Milan after 4 seasons.
Currently, Robinho plays for Istanbul Basaksehir F. K. in the Turkish Super Lig where he is currently reviving his career and helped to club to achieve the second spot in the league along with ex Newcastle United and Chelsea striker Demba Ba.
No matter whatever team we support, whichever player we root for, it seems very unfair and deprives fans of seeing classy football from these players. We just hope before calling it quits, Robinho would end up in the greats.
