“He was 34, 35… I couldn’t get anywhere near him” - Tuanzebe snubs Cristiano Ronaldo as he names best Manchester United player he played with

Former Manchester United defender Axel Tuanzebe overlooked Cristiano Ronaldo as he named former midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger as the best Red Devils player he has played with.

Tuanzebe, 27, was largely a fringe player during six seasons at Old Trafford, making 37 appearances across competitions before he was loaned out to Aston Villa.

Having shared pitch time with club legends like Wayne Rooney and Ronaldo, Tuanzebe instead went with Bayern Munich legend Schweinsteiger, who played for United for two seasons (2015-16 and 2016-17). He said on The Overlap (as per Metro):

"He was 34, 35 at the time. … I could not get anywhere near him, and I’m 19 at this point, so I’ve got legs for days!. He was three, four, five steps ahead of me. He knew how to control the ball and make me off balance.

"He was incredible in the box, I’ve never seen a player. … he had an ability to slow down time. The ball, it’s like a ping pong in there especially at that level. You had a box of Rooney, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Ashley Young, Michael Carrick, Schweinsteiger. In four or five days (of training) you might see him in the middle twice. It was unbelievable."

Having left United in the summer of 2017, Schweinsteiger retired in January 2020 while with MLS side Chicago.

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A look at Cristiano Ronaldo's career at Manchester United

Former Manchester United striker Cristiano Ronaldo

Cristiano Ronaldo is widely regarded as one of the best players to grace the beautiful game and is its most prolific scorer, having netted a staggering 924 times for club and country.

That includes 145 strikes (and 64 assists) in 346 games across two different stints at Manchester United. Most of those goal contributions came during his hugely successful first stint spanning between 2003 and 2009.

Arriving as a precocious teenager from Sporting CP, the 40-year-old blossomed into one of the game's finest under the able tutelage of the legendary Alex Ferguson.

The five-time Ballon d'Or winner won three straight Premier League and one UEFA Champions League title (2008) before moving to Real Madrid on a then world-record transfer in the summer of 2009.

Following nine successful seasons in the Spanish capital - scoring a record 450 goals in 438 games across competitions - Ronaldo spent three seasons at Juventus before returning to Manchester United in the summer of 2021.

However, Cristiano Ronaldo lasted just one and a half seasons, falling out of favour with former boss Erik ten Hag, before joining his current side Al-Nassr in December 2022.