Cristiano Ronaldo's Team Spirit in Football

Cristiano comes over to me, and he says,

hey, if we get a free kick today, it's yours.

We played the Champions League final against Chelsea.

We had practiced the week before, Edwin in goal,

I was on the right, hitting it over the wall,

and he was doing this knuckleball thing, you know?

And I remember I hit nine out of 10

into the top corner with Ed in goal,

and I was walking off, didn't say anything.

And Ed came over to me, and so he said,

oh, and if we get a free kick in the final,

you gotta take it, just to win the Champions League.

I said, come on, it's Cristiano, what am I gonna say?

He had watched it, didn't say anything to me.

Week later, but in the right time,

he cared about the outcome.

You know, he wanted to win.

He thought maybe if we got one,

I'd have a better chance of scoring.

And that, I thought, was a really powerful message

from the best player in the world at the time.

People always criticized him and said,

oh, he's selfish and all that.

I never saw him be like that.

Of course he's selfish.

He left home on his own to achieve what he has.

But he still had to fit in in a group

and be a team player when he had to.