RONALDO REAL .: НАСТОЯЩИЙ РОНАЛДО .: РОНАЛЬДО .: REAL RONALDO .: РОНАЛДУRonaldo: “I won´t leave football without winning the Champions”

	23/03/2005 Ronaldo: “I won´t leave football without winning the Champions”
He keeps his cheeky smile and is as sincere as always. Ronaldo said this in front of the cameras of Realmadrid TV in the program ‘Blanco Perfecto’ (Perfect White). He confessed that despite the years he is still “completely in love with football”, that the public at the Bernabéu “has to be conquered every day” and that he´s not thinking of leaving football “until I have won a Champions”. They say that playing at Real Madrid is different. Yes, I´d say it was a unique sensation. I´ve played for many of the great clubs in Europe and playing for Real Madrid is completely different. Apart from the pressure and the obligation to always win, is that it´s a club where just being in it gives you the greatest feeling and that of being in the greatest club in the world, being with the greatest players in the world. All players dream of being at Real Madrid. It´s true that Real Madrid is totally excessive, when it wins and when it loses. How do you stand the pressure? All of us who are in Real Madrid have to be prepared for that. It´s very good to be at Real Madrid when you win, it´s totally marvellous. But when you lose or don´t win some title the pressure is even greater, as everybody wants to see Real Madrid win. Everybody has a great affection for Madrid. Other great clubs go for years without winning titles and it´s not the same the pressure isn´t the same. For example, when I was at Inter Milán, one of the great clubs of Italy, they had gone 19 years without winning a title. They were under 10 per cent of the pressure that there is here, and that´s the difference. How is Ronaldo during defeats? I try not to over dramatise it when we lose or we fail in some way. When we lose a match I try to believe that the others were better, stronger. Sometimes we fail, but you shouldnñt over-dramatize that in football. Real Madrid, in spite of how good they are, can´t always win. It´s true that in 103 years of our history, there have been many years where there nothing has been won. Yes, in the last few years we have won a lot and the last three Champions that Real Madrid have won have meant that people have become obsessed by the Champions. Unfortunately we have been eliminated very early twice and people want us to win it again, as we do. Ronaldo has won everything at a club level and has won titles at other clubs, but the Champions League must still seduce him? - Yes, of course, at club level it´s the greatest, it could be more or less compared to a world level of selections, but it has an incredible charm. I won´t leave football without getting a Champions. Perhaps this pressure had an influence, this desire to win, in the incident with Tacchinardi? Because Ronaldo is a very clean player. Not at all, it was a very stupid incident on my part, but on the other hand it was a very ugly provocation, because every Sunday, evry match, I take a lot of kicks, but Tacchinardi gave me a kick before this incident and when I was going to beat him by speed and give a pass to Solari he elbowed me in the mouth. These kinds of incidents are very complex and you have to keep a very calm head and I didn´t. The word speed and Ronaldo are words which go together. Ronaldo perhaps doesn´t like to run, but rather he does love to sprint. I think it´s my main characteristic, winning plays by speed. Very much due to training, and very much due to my physique I´ve always had this speed which along with technique have allowed me to beat defenders. Your training must be more specialized in the short sprint which is your strong point. Yes, but all the players need an aerobic base and I need it too. And when I do so I suffer a lot because my speciality is not long runs. But sprinting yes, I prefer a lot more to do training for 15 or 20 metre sprints than to do a run of three or four kilometres. Your quality of speed apart from a very powerful shot, is a capacity that sets you apart.... How has your game evolved over the years? I thnik in quantity. If in a match I do ten or twelve runs with the ball and I win two or three and get to the goalmouth, in the next game I have to manage one or two more and carry on improving like that. They say that Ronaldo is a free spirit, but in this season he´s been seen participating with the group more than ever, including in defensive tasks. Many times, when it was needed, I came back to defend. What happens is that the position is forward, and what the coach asks me to do is to position myself well ahead of the defenders so they can´t come out easily, and this is what usually happens. What they don´t ask of forwards is to pick up balls or run behind the defence. They want us to move and make spaces when we have possession of the ball. The Bernabéu isn´t an easy pitch, the public is a lot more demanding, colder. -I´ve said before that the Bernabéu is like a woman, you have to conquer her every day, and give her your best every day. Every Sunday we have to do our best and put on a show, people expect that of us. People expect too much of the players, they have to understand that things don´t always work out well, and when it´s like that, the players also need the support of the people to keep their confidence up and try again next time. The truth is that I don´t suffer from what happens in the stands as I´m concentrating on my game. If I fail once or twice, I don´t mind if people whistle, I go and try once again. In seven, eight, or nine years this team will be remembered as one of the greatest in history, and one that has generated some spectacular football. - Without doubt, even if it all was to go wrong from now on, we´ll still go down in history. This project which the President made possible is impressive. I, as a football fan sometimes stop and think “it´s because we have a great team”. But it depends on us who for this team to go into the highest of football history.
24.03.2005 20:04 +0300 realmadrid.com

23/03/2005 Ronaldo: “I won´t leave football without winning the Champions”

23/03/2005
Ronaldo: “I won´t leave football without winning the Champions”