Ronaldo is one of the greatest legends in Brazilian football and shaped the Selecao. But the striker didn’t get along with a teammate.
Ronaldo has opened up about his time with the Brazil national team and revealed that he had a particularly bad relationship with one of his team-mates.
As a young player at the time, the former world-class striker looked to the experienced stars. He learned the most from Bebeto and Romario. “They were an inspiration to me,” Ronaldo said on a streaming talk show with his ex-teammates Christian Vieri, Nicola Ventola and Antonio Cassano, as well as ex-professional soccer player Daniele Adani.
Ronaldo on Romario: “He wanted to sabotage me”
But he still didn’t really get along with the latter, according to Ronaldo: “Romario was a motherf***** because he forced us young players to clean his boots or bring him coffee.”
Shortly thereafter, the three-time world footballer told an anecdote of the two at a training camp: “In 1997, I was already an important player. I had already won the Ballon d’Or and during the training camp for the Copa America, Romario suddenly said to me: ‘Go on ready, we’re going out tonight, don’t worry.’ He had prepared a ladder to climb over the hotel wall and there was a taxi waiting for us on the other side. We came back at 5am and I was exhausted from training the next day.”
An ambush by Romario, as Ronaldo suspects to this day: “I understood that Romario did it on purpose to tire me out and take my place in the starting XI. He wanted to sabotage me.”
Ronaldo and Romario nevertheless won two major titles: the 1994 World Cup and the 1996/97 Copa America.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
