Thursday, October 01, 2009

Evra: "Cristiano arrogant? It is the best person I knew"


Patrice Evra insists the image of former team-mate Cristiano Ronaldo portrayed by the media is far different than the player he knew.

The defender played alongside the Portuguese winger for three-and-a half years at Old Trafford before Ronaldo switched to Real Madrid for a record £80million in the summer.

Despite being recognised as one of the world's leading footballers many perceive the 24-year-old to be arrogant and moody.

However Evra states that could not be further from the truth and describes the Fifa World Player of the Year as a 'good guy'.

"He's not arrogant," Evra said. "He suffers as a result of his image as a fashion guy but honestly, he's the greatest professional I have ever trained with.

"He never has enough of it. This lad has to be the first everywhere in everything. If you play ping pong with him he can't stand losing.

"And in life, he's really a good guy. He's calm, he loves joking around, he really likes teasing people. In fact he's a bit like (David) Beckham.

"He's driven. They don't give themselves the right to make mistakes."

Evra even went on to point out that Ronaldo does not dive but did admit that the United players poked fun at the forward for his theatrical responses to being fouled.

"There has also been a lot of fouls against him which were never given because of his reputation," he added.

"When you look at the tackles he gets each game, well quite frankly the lad has reason to dive, if not he would break himself.

"After okay, he reacts badly. We also used to tease him."

The France international also highlighted that all the individual awards Ronaldo received towards the end of his stay with the Red Devils only had a positive effect on his personality.

"Yes he changed," he admitted. "At the end he had even more hunger, trained even more, because he needed to be the best.

"I don't know how he will act at Real. At United no-one plays the star. When you're with people such as Ryan Giggs or Paul Scholes, legends of this club, you can't. It's impossible."

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