On his Manchester United debut, Cristiano Ronaldo had to find a place in the dressing room full of experience but also to erase certain aspects of his game. He was able to rely on the atypical methods of Sir Alex Ferguson to do so. ..
“He liked to keep the ball but in England we like interventions! Fans don’t like simulators.” This sentence by BBC journalist Simon Stone, excerpted from “Browse: Cristiano, the search for a life” broadcast Friday evening on RMC Sport 1 (9pm), sums up the British concept of football well.
Coming from Sporting Portugal in 2003, Cristiano Ronaldo has taken some bad habits into his bags. A sealed diver, especially after the 2006 World Cup semi-final against France, is also doing his job in the English Premier League. In December 2006, Manchester United moved to Middlesbrough. When CR7 faces Boro goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer in a duel, the Portuguese collapses while the Australian goalkeeper does not touch him. The penalty kick was whistled, much to the chagrin of Gareth Southgate, then Borough coach. “There is no contact, the goalkeeper tries to dodge it and the player collapses…again,” summed up the current England coach bitterly.
The Portuguese prodigy’s behavior annoys even his side, Sir Alex Ferguson in the first place. So the Grand Chief of the Red Devils takes the problem head on. “He asked the jailers Scholes, Kane or Ferdinand to kick him during training,” Simon Mollock, a journalist for the Sunday Mirror, recalls.
With the locker room bosses on his back, Cristiano Ronaldo goes through more difficult training sessions. L’Equipe journalist Eric Bildermann recalls one session in particular: “I don’t know what Paul Scholes had against Ronaldo that day, but he went to tackle him once and then a second time and Ronaldo is angry. Scholes goes to fray for the third time and Ronaldo freaks out. Ferguson understands that he It’s necessary to intervene. He has only one word. He shouts, “Schollsey!!!” Paul Scholes calms down and that’s it, the message has passed.
It will take Cristiano Ronaldo several years to get rid of this simulation sticker. For Simon Molloch, the dressing room mainstays played a huge role in Ronaldo’s career: “He was mentored by Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Roy Keane, Rio Ferdinand and Edwin van der Sar. They all shaped Cristiano in his early days. The person in question has the same opinion. Also: “When I was 18 or 20, the old people reframed, and I said to myself ‘Cristiano, you have to get better. They knew football better than me, they had more difficult moments.
