IT’S ALL GOING RON FOR JOSE
Ronaldo’s Juve ready to pile on the agony for Manchester United boss
JOSE MOURINHO is on another collision course – this time with Cristiano Ronaldo.
The Manchester United boss and their former star, now at Juventus, were thrown together in the Champions League draw.
They have had an uneasy relationship in the past, despite both being Portuguese and sharing super-agent Jorge Mendes.
The pair clashed at Real Madrid in Mourinho’s first season at the Bernabeu when they had a dressing-room row over
what Ronaldo saw as the coach’s negative tactics in a Champions League defeat to Barcelona.
For his part, Mourinho had his reservations about Ronaldo, suspecting he was over-confident.
They spoke little and Mourinho issued instructions to Ronaldo through his No.2 Rui Faria.
Relations became so strained Mendes (above) had to intervene and tell them to patch things up.
Ronaldo did his best to put on a positive front in public, agreeing to Mendes’ request to support Mourinho when the Real boss was losing it – as he always seems to do in his third season at clubs.
Mourinho still found it difficult to acknowledge Ronaldo’s genius and snubbed him in a recent documentary about his mentor Sir Bobby Robson (above) when he claimed his Brazilian namesake was better.
“Ronaldo Nazario, the best Ronaldo ever!” he said.
Yet he was gracious enough to pay a glowing tribute to Ronaldo when he left Real after nine trophy-laden seasons to join Juve for £99.2million.
“La Liga no longer has the two best players in the world,” he said. “Now one’s in Spain and the other’s in Italy.”
Ronaldo might even have been reunited with Mourinho at Old Trafford and Mendes sounded out them and Paris SaintGerman before agreeing a deal with Juventus.
Despite the romance of Ronaldo returning to Old Trafford, United felt the £300million deal in wages and fee was too much.