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MICHAEL OWEN has claimed that Cristiano Ronaldo’s stellar career was made in Manchester – not Madrid.
And as the Portugal superstar prepares to lead Real Madrid against Juventus in his fifth Champions League Final in Cardiff on Saturday, Owen believes Ronaldo stands above his Barcelona rival Lionel Messi as football perfection.
Owen took Ronaldo’s famous No.7 shirt when he moved from Newcastle to Old Trafford in 2009 to replace the £80million Bernabeu-bound frontman.
And former Real, Liverpool and England star Owen, 37, has no doubts that Ronaldo’s brilliance is all down to his six years under Sir Alex Ferguson’s tutelage (right) in the Premier League.
“He was absolutely off the scale in how he was performing at United,” said Owen. “So I don’t think Real Madrid can take the credit at all because United and Fergie groomed him in that way and he continued to progress at Real.
“Ronaldo had a couple of out-of-thisworld seasons at United at the end and has not stopped improving.
“He is a one-off, he really is. Ronaldo and Messi have taken football to a new level for so long as well, consistently being top of the tree.
“People don’t realise that it’s so hard to become what Cristiano has become because if you painted the perfect picture of a football player it’s just Ronaldo.
“He’s the perfect height, he’s not too tall, a perfect height and shape. He’s quick, two- footed, brilliant in the air, durable and he scores goals for fun.
“If you typed all of those attributes into a computer you couldn’t come up with a more perfect player than Ronaldo.
“He’s got the lot. And added to that what he’s got between his ears as well in terms of the confidence, the arrogance and self-belief to be the best, it’s hard to see anyone coming close to him in the future.
“Don’t dismiss the way he lives his life either and the dedication he has to becoming better every day. Not everyone is like that. So there are lots of different elements to him being the best and he is certainly that.”
Blitz
Ronaldo, now 32, broke two more goalscoring records recently as he became the first player to score 100 Champions League goals with five of Real’s six in their quarter-final blitz of Bayern Munich. He followed that by smashing Jimmy Greaves’ all- time scoring record, against Celta Vigo in La Liga, by reaching 368 goals for his clubs. They are s t ats strikers can only dream of – and as a goalscorer