ROY KEANE HAS played down the impact he had on former Manchester United team-mate Cristiano Ronaldo, claiming that the Ballon d’Or winner was a player who never needed any encouragement.
Keane’s comments came in the wake of remarks made by Ronaldo last week, in which the Real Madrid superstar indicated that he learned a lot from Keane.
“(Keane was) always screaming to me: ‘Cristiano! Pass the ball,’” Ronaldo told Sport magazine.
“But it was good! At the end of the day, I feel happy because I learned a lot from them.”
While Keane downplayed the frequency of his screaming at Ronaldo, it appears that when he did offer advice, it was heeded.
“Yeah I made him,” Keane jokingly told reporters ahead of Ireland’s Euro 2016 play-off against Bosnia-Herzegovina. ”Only for me he wouldn’t be where he is.”
Keane acknowledged that, in management one needs to approach certain players differently, but said Ronaldo was never one of those players.
“Of course yeah, obviously different players have different traits in how you speak to them and who you shout at and who you don’t, but I didn’t shout at Ronaldo that much. I didn’t have to.”
