“He trained at 6:30 in the morning, Nani and I slept on a stretcher”: Anderson remembers what it was like to live with Cristiano Ronaldo

He made over 100 appearances for Manchester United between 2007 and 2015, but admits that if he had Cristiano Ronaldo’s mindset, his career might have turned out differently. Anderson, a 35-year-old former Brazilian midfielder, said in an interview with Globo Esporte that he lived with the Portuguese star when he arrived in England from Porto and that he found it difficult to keep up with the demanding CR7. habits.

“When I arrived in Manchester I went to Cristiano’s house. I am very grateful to him because he adopted me. Nani and I lived with him for almost a year; we left only because we wanted to. We stayed there for his sake. But we didn’t spend anything. Me and Nani, sometimes we still went shopping… But Cristiano took us to training, fed us, hired a cook for us. There was a swimming pool, a jacuzzi, a tennis court inside and outside the house…” he began with an explanation.

The “worst” was doing the CR7 routine. “Training was at 9:30, but sometimes we had to leave the house at 6:30 because he left early and we went with him. Nani and I slept on a stretcher, waiting, because he started work earlier,” – he said. Anderson, who won 12 titles with Manchester United, including the Champions League.

However, the former footballer leaves one regret: “If I had 5% of Cristiano’s mentality, I would have been among the 20 best midfielders of that time. What hindered us was that we had a Brazilian team… Thinking that we had already won everything and that everything had been resolved. I didn’t want more…”