PARIS: Cristiano Ronaldo’s first manager at Sporting Lisbon, Laszlo Boloni, asked him to stop showing off although he never had problems coaching the Portuguese international who now has three Ballon d’Or globes to his name.
Romanian Boloni coached the Real Madrid forward at Sporting from 2001-03.
“At the beginning I had to fight against some permanent exaggerations and correct some things,” Boloni told France Football magazine yesterday after Ronaldo secured the FIFA Ballon d’Or on Monday ahead of Argentine Lionel Messi and Germany’s Manuel Neuer.
“He could not stop showing off his technical skills and was dribbling too much.
“But preventing him from dribbling would have been crazy. The essential part of my job was to find and maintain a balance.”
Ronaldo played his first official game against Inter Milan in 2002 in a Champions League clash.
“Was he ready? Yes, he did not lack the courage nor the desire,” said Boloni, who believes his former protégé is the ultimate professional.
“He was never late, there was never any important problem,” he said.
Ronaldo joined Manchester United in 2003 and quickly settled at Old Trafford.
“I thought that at the age of 18 he could be needing an intermediate stage,” said Boloni.
“But I was wrong... six months later he was speaking English and he played 30 games in his first season. When he is confronted to new situations... Ronaldo has always shown stunning adapting skills and an incredible maturity.
“In his head, he has always been very strong.”
Disappointed Germans
Germans, who had hoped for a clean sweep at the FIFA Ballon D’Or, expressed disappointment yesterday after their World Cup-winning goalkeeper Manuel Neuer came third in the vote for the 2014 World Player of the Year.
Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo polled more than twice as many votes as his bitter rival and four-time winner Lionel Messi, who only just edged Bayern Munich’s Neuer into third place.
Neuer, who was outstanding at last year’s World Cup in Brazil and also helped Bayern clinch a domestic double, has let in just four goals in 17 league games so far this season.
“I think this is unfair,” said Germany’s former World Cup-winning captain and coach Franz Beckenbauer. “It seems that in this vote success does not count as much as appearances.”
“Keepers are in a difficult spot. People want to see goals, not the people stopping the goals,” the German legend added.
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