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Manchester United legend Dimitar Berbatov has lavished praise on former teammate Cristiano Ronaldo. With five Ballons d'Or, four European Golden Shoes, and a host of other personal and collective accolades, Ronaldo is widely regarded as one of the best players to have ever played the game.
The Portuguese was predominantly a winger when Berbatov played with him during his first stint at Manchester United. He joined the Red Devils from Sporting CP in the summer of 2003 for a reported fee of £12 million.
The present Al-Nassr forward shared the dressing room with Berbatov when the latter transferred from Tottenham Hotspur in 2008. The two played together on 39 occasions, registering a total of five joint goal participations.
Talking about his time with the Portuguese star, Berbatov said in an interview with The Telegraph (via Daily Mail):
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"We shared a year together, he was starting to grow by leaps and bounds. He trained like an animal, he tried his best to be the best. It was nice to see that dedication up close. I don't remember him missing a single training session."
After winning one Champions League, three Premier Leagues, and the coveted Ballon d'Or, Cristiano Ronaldo joined Real Madrid in 2009. However, he returned for another spell at Old Trafford in 2021 and infamously departed in the summer of 2022.
In all, the Portuguese played 346 games for Manchester United, scoring 145 goals and registering 64 assists.
When Manchester United legend Dimitar Berbatov picked between Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi
Dimitar Berbatov once gave his opinion on the longstanding rivalry between Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Despite lauding Ronaldo's work ethic, the Bulgarian center-forward chose Messi as his pick in the GOAT debate.
Ronaldo and Messi established an unparalleled duopoly over most awards and statistics in football during their prime. They won the Ballon d'Or - football's most coveted individual award- a record thirteen times between them (eight for Messi, five for Ronaldo).
Despite sharing the pitch with Ronaldo, Berbatov picked the Argentine, describing him as "the f**king greatest" in a 2018 interview with ESPN FC (via BESOCCER):
"Messi is the f***ing greatest. Ronaldo is brilliant, Messi, more my kind of player. He sees the game so clearly. He can score, create, he's the complete player, the best ever probably."
"If you ask someone older than me they will say Pele, Maradona or Puskas or Di Stefano. But for my generation it's Messi or Ronaldo. They're pretty much even, but something with Messi makes me shout 'Messi! Messi!' when I watch Barcelona on television," continued the former Manchester United forward.
Finally, he raved about Ronaldo's work ethic, highlighting why youngsters try to imitate the Portuguese:
"Young players try and imitate the best players like Ronaldo. They try to imitate the hair, the clothes, the cars, the tricks. I try to tell them how hard Cristiano Ronaldo trained in training and after training. He only wanted to be the best. Everything else came after."
Berbatov faced Messi just once in his career, in the UEFA Champions League 2008-09 final. In that game, Barcelona outclassed Manchester United 2-0 to become European Champions.
