Is Joe Cole The Poor Man's Ronaldinho?

Filed in archive Players on March 7, 2006

source: tvnz.co.nz

Watching the Barcelona v Chelsea second leg got me thinking about Ronaldinho and Joe Cole. They can both do step-overs all day long but only one of them is a two time World Player Of The Year, only one of them is a World Cup winner, and only one of them scored tonight.

Cole's in great form for club and country, emerging as what you could call a match winner. It's also impossible to overestimate what he's achieved in becoming an England regular, especially when you consider how other English flair players (Matt Le Tissier, Glen Hoddle, Peter Osgood) struggled internationally.

But it's a big leap from scoring the winner in a semi-meaningless international friendly or in an FA Cup tie against Colchester to scoring the deciding goal in the big Champions League games, as Ronaldinho did tonight, or in big World Cup games, as Ronaldinho did against England in 2002. So yes, Joe Cole is the poor man's Ronaldinho. But that's a compliment not an insult, and maybe when the World Cup dust settles in mid July, Cole will be another step(over) closer to the Brazilian.