CRISTIANO RONALDO has never been one to play down his talent but the Real Madrid star may have upset a few team-mates with his comments following his side’s 1-0 home defeat to city rivals Atletico, a loss that all but ends any faint hope they had of winning the title.
Their first defeat under manager Zinedine Zidane leaves Real nine points behind leaders Barcelona, and four below Atletico, although they weren’t helped by injuries, with Gareth Bale and Marcelo both sidelined, while Karim Benzema had to be replaced at half-time.
Speaking in the third person, Ronaldo said: “It annoys me that they say that Cristiano has dropped his level, and that is why Madrid have dropped their level.
“If they were all at my level, we would be first.”
The forward later attempted to clarify his remarks. He told Spanish paper Marca:
“I don’t want to knock anyone, no team-mate, but when the best are missing … I like to play with Bale, Benzema and Marcelo.
“I don’t want to say that Jese, Lucas (Vazquez) or (Mateo) Kovacic are not good players – they are very good – but … to win a competition, you need to have your best players.”
Whatever the true intention of Ronaldo’s words, it just highlights once again the biggest single difference between him and the other contender for the greatest player of their generation.
Whatever Lionel Messi may think, you’d never hear him publicly make comments like Ronaldo’s, he’d never openly criticise team-mates.
The Argentinian is a phenomenal player – but he’s also a team player. Ronaldo may be his match in terms of footballing genius but his priority has – and always will be – himself.
Was Ronaldo out of line with his comments?
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Football Advisor – bet with confidence.
Davies
Feb 29, 2016 at 10:28 am
I believe real madrid will be liga bbva champion this season
Gabby
Feb 29, 2016 at 10:55 pm
Keep fooling yourself
young rich
Feb 29, 2016 at 11:22 pm
Not to blame anyone but we should blame Perez,no pure central midfielder no striker no another left back,club like real how can they succeed,no one should blame Ronaldo,Ronaldo is a good player all he needs now is support, a player who can feed him with balls,that’s all.
KSXA14
Mar 1, 2016 at 2:05 am
When I first read the statement may by Cristiano a try to annoyed me, but later I realized it was old age that caused him to made such statement about his teammates.
Jd cap
Mar 1, 2016 at 4:18 am
Why are you bringing up messi in this discussion, why wouldn’t messi be quiet and gentle when he has had every decision going his way when it comes to almost everything, ballon d’or, Barcelona winning everything, teammates setting him up and the entire Barcelona board adoring, yes he’s never going to speak publicly cause he got no cause to do so, with Ronaldo it is different, no matter how well he performed people like you will make up story and say stuff about him. How can he talk in private, to whom, is it decent when his own officials are stabbing him in the back and favoring messi over him, understand that people got different ways of reacting to issues, if they don’t like it it is up to them to do something about it and improve, period.