James Rodriguez

I'm sick of seeing the "New Ronaldo" thread and nobody will change the name so welcome to the james Rodriguez thread.

I hope this gets merged into the "new Ronaldo" thread

I seriously hope not ha ha

Seen him play and if I could compare him to anyone it be Ronnie. He could be the new Ronaldo

Maybe I should change the thread title to "New Ronaldo"

Good ... we have now 3 threads for the same player

Left footer. Always useful to have.

Presumably as he's playing in Portugal then there's no work permit issues either.

I heard this guy's the new Ronaldo....

Any chance of a New Rolando thread? We could do with a defender.

From that video, he doesn't look much like Ronaldo to me, not nearly showy enough.

Good idea. This kid is doomed by the "new Ronaldo" tag. It's a bad habit used in the football media to draw attention to a player that has unfortunately spread. I can remember so many "new. . . " over the years and they hardly ever turn out well. . . Check it out: (none of these are made up BTW, I remember seeing all of them used at one point or another).

The NEW Diego Maradona . . . Javier Saviola
The NEW Michael Owen. . . Marian Pahars
The NEW Alan Shearer. . . Dean Ashton
The NEW Thierry Henry. . . David Bellion
The NEW Patrick Vieira. . . Eric Djemba Djemba
The NEW Jaap Stam. . . Kevin Hofland
The NEW David Beckham. . . Chris Eagles
The NEW Ronaldinho. . . Anderson
The NEW Roy Keane. . . Liam Miller

The new Maradona was Ariel Ortega.

There have been many labelled the "new Maradona". Saviola was definitely one of the one's who the label was most widely attached to. You say Ortega. You're probably right. I also remember Nicolas Anelka being called the new Maradona when he first broke through (for some reason). I also remember it being said about Aimar and of course, Messi.

how in the world could Anelka be called the new Maradona .... would like to know the reason

I should have said "a new Maradona, was Ariel Ortega" He was the first one I remember, the hype around him in 1998 was insane. Even United were linked with him. He seemed to fade pretty quickly though. I think pretty much any Argentine who has the ability to kick a ball has had the tag at some point.

Just like every French attacking midfielder (Bonus points if from Arab roots) is labelled the new Zidane.
Nasri, Feghouli, Ribéry and even Benzema were labelled as new Zizzous. (Which is insane as Frank and Benz are not even attacking midfielders)

And every black defensive midfielder will get labelled as new Vieira if the midfielder is tall, like Alou Diarra and Abou Diaby and Moussa Sissoko
and if short, the new Makélélé like Lassana Diarra, Blaise Matuidi and Rio Mavuba.

And every white defensive midfielder is the new Deschamps or Petit (Again depending on the height)

It's just lazy journalism at it's finest.

It doesn't do the players any favours either. We should just let them be individuals instead of the next "so and so" look at the problems it's caused Nani with the constant comparisons with Ronaldo.

I hope we're after this lad, he's class. Problem is he'd be an expensive purchase being a Porto player.

Yup, Portuguese clubs have stepped up recently and a not giving their players away for peanuts. I just hope Porto don't rate him in the same league as Hulk or we'd have no chance of affording him.