Cristiano Ronaldo 'Very Difficult To Stop Even If You Know Him,' Former Teammate Says

A former Portugal defender revealed how it was like to play against his international side teammate Cristiano Ronaldo.

Aside from being still one of the most dominant players in club football, Ronaldo was also impressive in the international stage. In his stellar international career, Ronaldo has won a total of 31 trophies, including six league titles, five European Cups, one European Championship and 16 titles from friendly competitions. In terms of goals, “CR7” will go down in history as arguably the best international player with an all-time goal record of 99 goals for the Portugal national team and the second overall men's international goalscorer in history, behind by only 10 goals from all-time record holder Ali Daei of Iran.

One of Ronaldo’s co-stars in international side was Paulo Ferreira. Ronaldo and Ferreira developed a good relationship in and outside soccer. However, during the 2007 FA Cup final, the two Portuguese stars had to set their friendship aside and battle each other inside the pitch.

Ferreira was handed one of the hardest tasks in his career that afternoon. He was assigned to try and shackle Ronaldo, his international teammate and Manchester United’s biggest attacking threat at the time.

In a recent interview with Chelsea FC, Ferreira revealed the in-game strategy the Blues came up with in an attempt to stop Ronaldo. According to the Chelsea legend, Ronaldo did very well during the said game. In fact, the Portuguese icon had a terrific season that year. And though Ferreira was aware of how Ronaldo plays, he admitted that it was very difficult to stop him.

Fortunately, Chelsea had Claude Makelele at the time, the player Ferreira teamed-up with in the epic battle against the United superstar.

“Those kind of players are very difficult to stop. They are so skilful and Ronaldo had strength and pace as well, so even if you know him it’s still very difficult to stop him. The good thing was the way we prepared for that game because I was lucky to have Claude Makelele there,” Ferreira said.

The 41-year-old then continued by emphasizing that he and Makelele managed to dictate Ronaldo’s pacing by creating a “two versus one” scenarios instead of a one-on-one with Ronaldo, a situation in which they know the Man United striker will surely prevail.

“The strategy was to stop Cristiano because he was the player who could create dangerous situations, so we knew if we could block him we could stop most of their threats. He could beat players and score goals, so the key was for Maka to come and help me so we could create a two-versus-one situation, rather than leaving me one-on-one against him,” Ferreira revealed.