Ex Man Utd coach reveals how Cristiano Ronaldo’s headbutt red-card changed his career

Former Manchester United coach, Rene Meulensteen, exclusively reveals to Stretty News how a three-match suspension turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Cristiano Ronaldo.

Meulensteen joined Sir Alex Ferguson’s technical staff in 2007, and remained in this role until the departure of the iconic Scottish manager in 2013.

During his time at Carrington, the Dutch coach was entrusted with several tasks, including maximising the potential of the first-team players through personalised training. Therefore, the 61-year-old got to work with some of the biggest names in the sport, including one particular GOAT contender.

Meulensteen ended up playing an instrumental role in turning the Portuguese legend from a talented winger who enjoys showboating into the goal-scoring machine that is now pushing for the astonishing 1000 career-goal milestone.

How Cristiano Ronaldo emerged as a goal-machine

Ferguson’s former associate reveals that this transition began with a coincidence, as CR7 was handed a three-match ban for allegedly headbutting Portsmouth’s Richard Hughes during a Premier League contest in August 2007.

This suspension meant that Ronaldo was left behind when the team was travelling, which gave Meulensteen the opportunity to develop his goalscoring instinct and, more importantly, change his perspective.

“With Cristiano it was really a lucky circumstance to some extent, because obviously Cristiano got suspended, in that particular season.” said the current Australia assistant manager in an exclusive with Stretty News in collaboration with Poker Strategy.

“He missed out on quite a few games in the beginning, which meant that he didn’t travel with the team, so he stayed behind, and I was able to work with him.”

“So that was really some quality time and it gave me the opportunity to sit down with him and discuss things about his current game and how he could bring it forward. I think were both in agreement on the fact that we need to make him more effective in front of goal, basically working on his finishing, his timing, the variation of finishes, etc…”

Rene Meulensteen reveals his role in Ronaldo’s evolution

Meulensteen explained how he urged Ronaldo to follow in the footsteps of some of the deadly centre-forwards who were at the club during Ferguson’s era.

As he explained, the five-time Ballon d’Or winner was initially hellbent on scoring the most decisive, or the most spectacular goals, rather than racking up numbers.

“The biggest thing was to bring him from awareness to understanding, from a player who could score a goal, to become a ‘goalscorer’. It’s a different mentality, different attitude, because as you know from history, United had some fantastic goalscorers, in [Andy] Cole, [Dwight] Yorke, [Teddy] Sheringham, [Ole Gunnar] Solskjaer, [Ruud] Van Nistelrooy.

“They all had that attitude that they want to step on the pitch with one aim, and that is to scoring goals, whereas Cristiano, initially, he wanted to score the most important goal and the most beautiful goal. So that was basically in a nutshell the main task that I set for myself to help him with.”

CR7 went on to score 42 goals that season, playing a fundamental role in Man Utd’s Premier League and Champions League triumphs, and he also earned his first Ballon d’Or. The Portuguese superstar went on to score 40+ goals in nine other campaigns, with the vast majority coming during his time at Real Madrid.

At the age of 40, Ronaldo is still going strong, as he remains active with Al-Nassr whom he joined in January 2023 after an underwhelming second spell at Old Trafford.

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