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Real Madrid's Portuguese star striker Cristiano Ronaldo on Tuesday spoke out about Sir Alex Ferguson's terrible temper on and off the pitch, and about the way the former Manchester United coach yelled at him.
The more you shout at him, the louder he gets and the more aggressive he gets: Ronaldo
Ronaldo remembered when he was playing for Manchester United in a Champions League defeat against Portuguese soccer club Benfica when Ferguson apparently lost his head.
“We didn’t play well and he was shouting at me. I thought I was one of our best players on the day and thought ‘why are you shouting at me?’” Ronaldo said.
He said, he “started having a go, shouting back, but the problem is – which I failed to learn quickly – that the more you shout at him, the louder he gets and the more aggressive he gets and the closer he gets to you.”
But the Bleacher Report website said that in spite of what sounded like ill-tempered flare-ups, Ronaldo and Ferguson actually enjoyed quite the affinity and many experts say the British coach is said to be responsible for forming the Portuguese player into the star he is today.
In fact, on previous occasions, Ronaldo has described the former Red Devils coach as his “father in football.”
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Ferguson, in turn, has recently named Ronaldo as one of only four world-class players he worked with and described the forward as “a complete genius of a player.”
The Bleacher Report said the former Manchester United boss was renowned for his brutal rants and it would seem as though as his players weren’t immune from Ferguson's verbal aggressions.
“I remember sometimes when we did something bad or we lost some games,” said the Real Madrid forward, according to the Daily Mirror. “He kicked the chairs, he kicked the boots, he kicked everything, the water, the drinks, and he was so red, saying ‘Fuck you should pass the ball,’ it was unbelievable, but it was good, because we learned.”
Ronaldo, according to sports commentators, arrived at Manchester United a very skinny and undisciplined player, although he did have a bag of tricks.
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“By the time he left the club, the Portuguese had become one of the best players in the world, had bulked up and was regularly turning in match-winning performances for the Red Devils,” wrote Matt Jones, a sports columnist for Bleacher Report.
But despite his weaknesses and almost “brattish” attitude back then, Ronaldo proved to be deaf to Ferguson's rants and instead opted to learn from one of the greatest soccer coaches in history to become himself one of the best players of all times.
Last week, Ronaldo achieved to historic feats as he surpassed the 500-goal mark in his career to join the 500 Club and also broke Real Madrid’s record as the highest scorer with 324 goals.
In the meantime, Ferguson's style of coaching seems to be fading away, since players currently have more power than than ever before.
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