Cristiano Ronaldo arrived in England with a reputation of being a poser. There was no end product – it was just step-over, step-over, dive. Of course, he was a flair player but no one in a million years thought he’d end up scoring 42 goals in one season – from the left wing. I thought he might be in the same vein as Anders Limpar had been at Arsenal in the early 1990s, but without the impact that he’d had. Got that one right, didn’t I?
What I didn’t realise is just how tough mentally Ronaldo proved to be, and that’s what has turned him into a great player. Look at the way he handled the ‘winking’ affair from the World Cup in 2006. Wayne Rooney, his Manchester United room-mate no less, had just been tackled by Ricardo Carvalho and had stamped on him – sort of – as a result. Ronaldo got involved, there was a bit of shoving, Ronaldo and the rest of the Portuguese decided to tell the ref what action to take and Rooney got a red card as a result. As he left the field, the cameras caught Ronaldo’s wink of satisfaction. Ten-men England held on for another 30 minutes of extra-time but then naturally lost the penalty shoot-out – and just to rub it in it was Ronaldo’s spot-kick that finished it off.
I don’t blame Wayne Rooney for what he did. It wasn’t a sending-off offence anyway – he should just have got a yellow card. As for Ronaldo, he was young and immature and he shouldn’t have got involved. If it had been me and my old Arsenal pal Paul Merson on opposite sides, I’d have badgered the referee to ‘Get him off, he’s a thug’ but I would have been joking when I said it.
It wasn’t a joke when Ronaldo said it, though, and all hell broke loose afterwards. ‘Yes, I speak to referee,’ he said, ‘but I say, “Foul!” I don’t say, “Red card.” I don’t care who says that. It is not true.’
Rooney’s version of events was, not too surprisingly, a bit different. ‘I want to say absolutely categorically that I did not intentionally put my foot down on Ricardo Carvalho. He slid in from behind me and unfortunately ended up in a position where my foot was inevitably going to end up as I kept my balance. That’s all there was to it. If you ask any player and indeed almost any fan, they will tell you that I am straight and honest in the way I play.
‘From what I’ve seen in the World Cup, most players would have gone to ground at the slightest contact but my only thought then was to keep possession for England. When the referee produced the red card I was amazed – gobsmacked. I bear no ill feeling to Cristiano but am disappointed that he chose to get involved. I suppose I do, though, have to remember that on that particular occasion we were not team-mates.’
The ref said he wasn’t influenced by anyone, but if I’d been Rooney I’d have larruped Ronaldo in the first training session back at Old Trafford.
We all love a pantomime villain, don’t we? And that’s what Ronaldo became the next season. But it didn’t seem to bother him one bit and I admire that in a player. It shows great mental strength and courage to ignore all that. What the crowd who are giving out stick don’t realise is that all they are doing to the top players is making them more determined than ever to turn it on. And that’s exactly what he did when he came back to the Premiership and the Champions League – he simply turned it on. He showed that something special he’d had all his life.
He was born on Madeira, an island nearly 600 miles from the Portuguese mainland, and his childhood home, a bungalow, was so small that the washing machine was on the roof. His family weren’t exactly poverty-stricken but he did have it tough from an early age because he was named after US President Ronald Reagan, which can’t have been very common out there.
By the time he was 11, he’d been spotted by Sporting Lisbon and he joined their academy. The first time he ever flew was to leave Madeira and fly to Portugal to move into digs with nine other boys. He was in tears at leaving and eventually Sporting paid to fly his mother over to comfort him. ‘There were a lot of tears in my first few weeks in Lisbon,’ he said. ‘Madeira is so small. I couldn’t believe the traffic and noise of a capital city. In the beginning, nobody could understand me because of my accent and I couldn’t understand them. I used to call my family whenever I could. I remember buying phone cards and looking at the units go down as I spoke to my parents and brothers and sisters.’
But he stuck it out and at 16 he was in the Sporting first team. In the summer of 2003 – shortly after he’d turned 18 – he ran riot down both wings as his side beat Manchester United 3–1 in a pre-season tournament. It didn’t come as a complete shock to United, though, as they had already been tracking him since before Christmas, with chief scout Mick Brown and Sir Alex Ferguson’s brother Martin, the club’s European scout, becoming regulars at Sporting’s matches. When United beat Chelsea and Arsenal to his signature that summer, Ronaldo became the most expensive teenager in British football at £12 million.
‘After we played Sporting Lisbon last week, the lads in the dressing room talked about him constantly,’ Fergie said. ‘And on the plane back from the game, they urged me to sign him. That’s how highly they rated him.’ The United boss was sure he’d found a star. ‘He’s one of the most exciting young players I’ve seen. He is extremely talented, a two-footed attacker who can play anywhere up front, right, left or through the middle.’
When he signed for them Ronaldo didn’t want to wear the number seven shirt that had been worn by such players as Bryan Robson, Eric Cantona and David Beckham. He felt it would be too much of a responsibility, he has said, ‘but Alex Ferguson said, “No, you’re going to have number seven” and the famous shirt was an extra source of motivation. I was forced to live up to such an honour.’
A lot of the publicity Ronaldo has received has centred on his ‘diving’. Middlesbrough manager Gareth Southgate said after a penalty was awarded against his team, ‘We feel cheated. It’s as simple as that. My view is the complete opposite to Sir Alex Ferguson. The lad has got a history of doing it. It was never a penalty. There was clearly no contact and our keeper tried to get out of his way. I don’t blame the referee because it happened at speed, but it has cost us dearly. It’s hard when you go behind to a goal like that. It happened with a free-kick when he went down again. How many times are we going to see this sort of thing? The answer is for players to perform in the manner they should. If they have the opportunity to stay on their feet and not go down for a penalty, they should.’
Ferguson said, ‘I thought it was a clear penalty.’ Shock!
A month or so later, Spurs had a similar complaint when Ronaldo went down near Steed Malbranque. Their manager, Martin Jol, insisted the 45th-minute penalty should not have been given and the Tottenham fans turned on Ronaldo after the break, having seen replays of the flashpoint from three different angles on the big screen at half-time.
‘It wasn’t a penalty,’ Jol said. ‘Malbranque stuck his foot out then pulled it back. I can’t say he took advantage of it but I don’t know. … It’s about the referee – he has to make a decision. He is a human being. He had a good view of it. At first, I thought he was falling over but, if you see it again, Malbranque has stuck his foot out. That is probably what the referee saw but he didn’t see that Malbranque pulled his foot back as well. I wouldn’t say that Ronaldo was diving but it was a difficult situation. If you see it on television, you see that it’s no penalty.’
While everyone was having a go at Ronaldo over such incidents – and there were many more of them – he went up in my estimation for a simple reason. He was Public Enemy Number One but he didn’t let it affect his game – he got even better! What a lot of people assume is that, because he is a ‘flair’ player, he must be slightly built. But he is 6ft 1in tall and to have him coming at you full-tilt doing his step-overs must be like trying to stop a charging rhino. I don’t think he ‘dives’ as much as he did when he first arrived here, but he still keeps winning penalties and opposing managers still complain about the unfairness of it all.
Ronaldo’s level of play since that World Cup has been staggering and a lot of the credit for that has to go down to Alex Ferguson. His man-management has always been superb, and just look at the way he has taken care of Ronaldo. At first there was all that criticism of his ‘showboating’ and then the hatred from Rooney’s sending off. On top of that he is always being linked with Real Madrid, but every time Ferguson seems to put a protective arm around him and say, ‘Come on home to the family that is Manchester United, son.’
This is what Ferguson said after one bout of speculation that he would be off to Real as the most expensive footballer in the world: ‘After the meeting I had with Cristiano, when I explained the situation and what we expect of players from Manchester United, he’s already said he’s delighted to be back here, so to say that he’s here reluctantly is not the case. When we had the meeting the lad quickly agreed with me, so I have no issues whatsoever with him. [One on one in a room with Fergie – he ain’t going to argue, is he?] He’ll be OK, he’ll do his best, he’ll be a great player this season because he’s still improving. He’ll be absolutely fantastic for us.
‘Everyone said last season that he wouldn’t score more than the 23 goals he scored in the previous campaign. I don’t think anyone thought he could do better than that and I said he would. I expected him to improve and I expect him to improve again this season. Of course, we’re at a different level – 42 goals against 23 goals is completely different – so if he gets to 41 goals I think we’ll forgive him.’
It’s a technique that works.
Everyone rates Ronaldo as a player. Eusebio, the most famous Portugal international of them all, reckons Ronaldo may overtake him. ‘The way he’s going at the moment he can become not only the best footballer in Portugal, but also the best in the world. Maybe not the best of all time, but I think within a short space of time Ronaldo will be recognised as the best footballer in the world.’
Johan Cruyff said, ‘For me, Ronaldo is above the rest and if he keeps scoring in this rhythm and stays in this sort of form then he will prove that he is the best. Ronaldo is better than George Best and Denis Law, who were two brilliant and great players in the history of United. But Ronaldo is 22 and, with his quality and progression in the game, I believe he will be even better and win many more prizes for himself and his club. For him to be so good takes dedication. But he also needs support from his team-mates and his coach, Sir Alex Ferguson.
‘The only thing that I see as a weakness in his game is the number of assists, but he is young enough and has the right coach to improve in that respect. He scores great goals and now also spectacular free-kicks, but to be the complete forward he must provide more assists as his record can be improved.’
I too think Ronaldo is on the verge of greatness. Well, I’m not going to argue with Johan Cruyff, am I? I’d agree with the gist of what he said, but there is a criticism of him that, although he tears most teams apart, he has not turned it on against the very best in the really big games. Even so, this hasn’t stopped him picking up a clutch of awards such as Player of the Year, Young Player of the Year, European Player of the Year… You name it, he’s won it.
One aspect of his game I haven’t mentioned, though, is his heading ability. It’s fantastic. He climbs high and he’s as brave as they come when he goes for the ball. Some great flair players have lacked that part of their game, but not him. It’s surprising in one respect. With all that gel on his barnet, you’d think he wouldn’t want to mess his hair up, would you?