In an extract from his new book, Rene Meulensteen: United, Sir Alex And Me, the former Manchester United assistant manager recalls his role in the development of Cristiano Ronaldo.
In his first few seasons atManchester United,Cristiano Ronaldowas a precocious talent that needed direction.
United knew he was special but also that he had to be honed and polished until the flawless diamond could sparkle.
When Rene Meulensteen became first-team coach in 2007, he knew where Ronaldo was headed and he recalls a conversation between the pair that shaped the future, taking Ronaldo from good to great to elite…
One of Sir Alex’s mantras was to say that if we were no more than five or six points behind the league leaders at the єɴԀ of January (if we weren’t on top), then we were in a good position.
From that point he’d pick a more consistent 11 in the league to develop continuity. He spoke of the importance of our individual talent and how that would win games – but it was a team effort that would win us trophies.
That individual talent was clear in the form of Ronaldo. By the єɴԀ of February, he’d already scored 30 goals in all competitions.
‘I know exactly what you want,’ I remember saying to him in one of our sessions.
‘Oh yeah? I’ll say it. You want to be the best player in the world. And not once. Not twice. You want to establish yourself as one of the greatest of all-time… and that’s great. You have a focus. You have an aim. And people who have an objective are much more successful than people who do not. So, the question is, where you are going and where you want to be, will you be considered that way tomorrow?’
‘No,’ he admitted.
‘Next week?’
‘No.’
‘Next month?’
‘No.’
That’s where the different conversations came in. He needed to be more effective in the deployment of his incredible gifts. He needed to score more goals to help United win more games. If he did that then United would surely win more trophies. And winning more trophies is part of the sequence of achieving greatness.
His form was incredible. Multiple times he scored twice in games to put us in control early on. He had embraced what he needed to do. Chances were turned into goals.
The perfect goals he wanted arrived, as I had assured him. The free-kicks he scored against Sunderland and Portsmouth were breath-taking. It was not a surprise to me or any of us who saw him every day.
He was relentless. Get better. Score more goals. Win more games. Get better. Score more goals. Win more games. He reached his target of 30 againstNewcastlein February. ‘Great,’ I said to him after. ‘You’ve done that, but now you’ve got March, April, and May. What’s next?’
‘I’m going to try to reach your target,’ he said, referring to my opinion that he should get 40 goals.
I’d made a DVD for him titled ‘From Good to Great’. I wanted to get him into a mental state to maintain his incredible form and still look to improve each time he went out.
I asked him to watch the DVD three times – the first to just watch. The second to focus on the words and quotes that were said. The third and final time was to analyse the clips and to consider why I’d chosen them.
The purpose was to sharpen the perspective that he was so important as an individual to make the team achieve what they wanted – but without the team, he was nothing.
United єɴԀed the season as champions of England and Europe, and with a battle for Ronaldo, as Meulensteen recalls.
He quite openly wanted to joinReal Madrid, but the boss had convinced him to stay an extra year. Credit to him because as soon as that decision was reached, it was business as usual. No sulking.
The players took it in good humour. The first day back in training, Scholesy said to him: ‘Seeing as you wanted to go to Real Madrid so bad, you can wear a white bib all season.’
Cristiano was great for us, and I think in hindsight he would have been happy he did stay with us for that extra year.
