In a press conference, Al Nassr manager Rudi Garcia stated that he preferred to sign 2022 World Cup winner Lionel Messi over Cristiano Ronaldo.
The Spanish manager has already risked the wrath of Cristiano Ronaldo even before his arrival in Saudi Arabia.
Ronaldo has the power to sack and appoint a new manager, and as part of this contract, the manager needs to be careful of what he says about the future.
However, Rudi Garcia has spoken nicely of Ronaldo and insisted the former Portuguese star is still at the top of his game.
Despite the fact that the manager is focused on winning titles with Al Nassr, who are currently on top the Saudi Arabia League table, it was confirmed that a former Al Nassr player failed to give up his number seven after the Ronaldo deal was announced. This means that there is already a crack in the team.
To make matters worst, reports in Saudi Arabia claimed that Al Nassr had to terminate the contract of the player who refused to give up his number 7 jersey in favour of Ronaldo. Other players who are loyal to the sacked player might have bad blood against Ronaldo in the team.
Ronaldo completed a move to Saudi Arabia to join Al Nassr on a two-year contract. He is expected to earn 173 million euros per year.
He is an important promotion for the Saudi Arabian League, with different European broadcasting networks looking forward to showing games from the league due to Ronaldo’s presence.
Al Nassr’s Instagram followers were not up to a million, but after the Ronaldo announcement, the followers increased to more than six million.
The deal came after Manchester United terminated his contract for publicly criticizing the club management in an interview with a well-known Arsenal fan, Piers Morgan.
Ronaldo wanted to play in the Champions League, but due to a lack of options, he decided to move out of Europe to play in Asia.
However, many have criticized Ronaldo for moving to a club like Al Nassr at the end of his career.
Fans claimed he went there solely for the money because it was the largest contract in football history.
After Argentina won the World Cup win in December, former Manchester United midfielder Jesse Lingard posted on his Instagram page to celebrate Messi, which did not go down well with Ronaldo, who immediately stopped following the superstar.
Ronaldo publicly criticized Wayne Rooney after the striker claimed Messi was the world’s best player despite playing with him at the highest level.
There has been a lot of rivalry between Messi and Ronaldo in terms of who is the greatest player of all time.
The duo have been battling for records and the Ballon d’Or. In addition, both players have scored more than 1,000 goals and won multiple trophies.
