We all know that Cristiano Ronaldo is competitive and a man who prides himself on being one of the best, if not the best, of all time in football. But what happens when he is not considered the same by those who shared the field with him at one point?
Well, according to former Inter Milan and Italy international Antonio Cassano, Ronaldo ended up feeling “disrespected” and clapped back loudly.
In a recent interview with the BSMT Podcast, Cassano revealed his personal top five players to ever play football.
And in a shock ruling, he removed the five-time Ballon d’Or winner from his list – behind the likes of Lionel Messi, Pele, Diego Maradona, Johan Cruyff and the ‘original’ Brazilian Ronaldo.
The Portuguese is said to be unhappy about being left off the list as Cassano revealed he received both a text and voice message from Ronaldo himself criticizing him for his exclusion.
“I said Ronaldo is number 1, the Brazilian. “Cristiano Ronaldo is not in my top five or even top ten because for me the quality of the player is another thing,” Cassano said.
“The next thing I’m doing the work I was doing and I get a text from a +34 number, it’s Spain. This is a list of all trophies, goals and stats.”
“Then he sent me a voice note saying, ‘You disrespected me, don’t do anything like that again. You scored only 150 goals, won only four trophies. Perfect.”
“So I answer him. I say: “Dear Cristiano, listen to me. You think I didn’t respect you, I just don’t like you as a player. What’s the problem?’
“He went to the trouble of texting me, imagine.”
Cassano, who played for Real Madrid between 2006 and 2007, even went so far as to say that Al-Nasser’s current star “doesn’t know how to play football and I don’t care if he scores 3,000 goals”.
Elma Aveiro, Cristiano Ronaldo’s sister, was the first to respond publicly to Cassano’s criticism of her brother: “I don’t know this poor man (Cassano) and I don’t even care. But I will say just one thing, if Cristiano doesn’t know how to play and he scored 900 goals, imagine if he really knew how to play.”
“They say he was a footballer, I think they are mistaken; he was actually a ball boy,” Elma concluded regarding Cassano.
