Rafael van der Vaart has heaped praise on Cristiano Ronaldo’s extraordinary work ethic, joking that he ‘never saw his willy’ as he was consistently the first and last player on the training pitch.
Ronaldo has cemented his status place the greatest players in the history of the game after winning 33 trophies across a glittering career and the 39-year-old is still going strong with Saudi Pro League outfit Al-Nassr.
The iconic forward stands alone as the highest goalscorer of all time and is second only to Lionel Messi – his great rival – when it comes to the most Ballon d’Or wins after scooping the prestigious prize five times.
Van der Vaart shared a dressing room with Ronaldo for one season following the Portuguese’s £83million transfer move from Manchester United to Real Madrid in 2009.
Madrid would end that season trophyless but Ronaldo finished as the club’s top scorer – despite missing seven weeks through injury – and the attacker was already setting an example with his relentless dedication both on and off the pitch.
‘He never left his house,’ Van der Vaart explained on talkSPORT’s The LineUp.
‘I always say as a joke that Ronaldo is the only player that I never saw his willy because he was the first one on the training pitch and the last one who went.
‘I looked at his body and I thought, “Wow, machine!”, and he was a little bit ahead of his time.
‘Physically, the players now are the same.
‘But his training, in the gym, food, sleep… for him, that was probably more important than training extra hard or something.’
Van der Vaart underlined that he has ‘a lot of respect’ for Ronaldo and has sympathy for his former team-mate as he was never able to ‘live a normal life’.
‘He’s a good guy but, also, it’s a little bit sad because he couldn’t live a normal life. It’s really hard,’ the Dutchman added.
‘We forget about that, people don’t know because they only see him on the pitch.
‘But they don’t know what everybody is telling him, negative things. I have a lot of respect for him.’
Van der Vaart lifted the lid on Ronaldo’s insatiable desire to score goals, revealing how the five-time Ballon d’Or winner would sulk whenever he failed to get on the scoresheet.
Quizzed on the rivalry between Ronaldo and Messi, he said: ‘For me, there is no debate.
‘The problem is when you’re born with talent, the trainers and everybody thinks you do less but, of course, Messi works hard in a different way.
‘Ronaldo was so unbelievably selfish that when we won 6-0 and he didn’t score, he was not happy. When we lost 3-2 and he scored twice, he was laughing, all good.
‘He just needed to score. When I made one goal in the first five minutes, it was already good and I had a good night and then we play a little bit more. But he was like, “No, next one, next one!”.
‘And it was the same with Ruud van Nistelrooy. When you speak with him it’s so interesting, “I need my goals”, and when you didn’t play the ball to him, he would say, “Do you want to win?! Why do you play the ball to Dirk Kuyt and not to me?!”.
Pressed to choose between Ronaldo and Messi, Van der Vaart replied: ‘Then I would say Messi.
‘I was a big fan of Diego Maradona, I saw all his videos. They’re so similar, it’s crazy.’
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