Man Utd icon Scholes’ prank on Ronaldo after eyeing Real Madrid transfer
Cristiano Ronaldo took the world by storm throughout the 2007/2008 marketing campaign, recording 42 objectives and eight assists in all competitions to assist spearhead a exceptional season for Manchester United that noticed the Red Devils win the Premier League and Champions League double. His sensational type caught the attention of many potential suitors together with Real Madrid.
The Portuguese star made no secret about his want to affix the Spanish giants however was persuaded to remain for yet another season by Sir Alex Ferguson. When phrase bought again to Paul Scholes that he was seeking to safe a transfer away from Old Trafford, the Salford sensation took the chance to play a prank on his teammate.
Former coach Rene Meulensteen recollects in his autobiography how Scholes made Ronaldo put on a white bib in coaching for the whole season after expressing that his dream was to play for Los Blancos. “He fairly brazenly wished to affix Real Madrid, however the boss had satisfied him to remain an additional 12 months. Credit to him as a result of as quickly as that call was reached, it was enterprise as ordinary. No sulking.
“The players took it in good humour. The first day back in training, Scholesy said to him, ‘Seeing as you wanted to go to Real Madrid so bad, you can wear a white bib all season.’ Cristiano was great for us, and I think in hindsight he would have been happy he did stay with us for that extra year.”
When Ronaldo joined Man Utd from Sporting Lisbon in 2003, his immense expertise was clear to see. Though it will take him a while to get into his groove and realise his full potential. When Meulensteen grew to become first-team coach in 2007, he knew the place Ronaldo was headed and he recollects a dialog between the pair that formed the long run five-time Ballon d’Or winner’s profession.
“That individual talent was clear in the form of Ronaldo. By the end of February, he’d already scored 30 goals in all competitions. ‘I know exactly what you want,’ I remember saying to him in one of our sessions. ‘Oh yeah?’
“‘I’ll say it. You want to be the best player in the world. And not once. Not twice. You want to establish yourself as one of the greatest of all-time… and that’s great. You have a focus. You have an aim. And people who have an objective are much more successful than people who do not. So, the question is, where you are going and where you want to be, will you be considered that way tomorrow?’
“‘No,’ he admitted. ‘Next week?’ ‘No.’ ‘Next month?’ ‘No.’ That’s where the different conversations came in. He needed to be more effective in the deployment of his incredible gifts. He needed to score more goals to help United win more games. If he did that then United would surely win more trophies. And winning more trophies is part of the sequence of achieving greatness.
“His form was incredible. Multiple times he scored twice in games to put us in control early on. He had embraced what he needed to do. Chances were turned into goals. The perfect goals he wanted arrived, as I had assured him. The free-kicks he scored against Sunderland and Portsmouth were breath-taking. It was not a surprise to me or any of us who saw him every day.
“He was relentless. Get better. Score more goals. Win more games. Get better. Score more goals. Win more games. He reached his target of 30 against Newcastle in February. ‘Great,’ I said to him after. ‘You’ve done that, but now you’ve got March, April, and May. What’s next?’
“‘I’m going to try to reach your target,’ he said, referring to my opinion that he should get 40 goals. I’d made a DVD for him titled From Good to Great. I wanted to get him into a mental state to maintain his incredible form and still look to improve each time he went out.
“I asked him to watch the DVD three times – the first to just watch. The second to focus on the words and quotes that were said. The third and final time was to analyse the clips and to consider why I’d chosen them. The purpose was to sharpen the perspective that he was so important as an individual to make the team achieve what they wanted – but without the team, he was nothing.”