Could I love CR7 any more?!

It wasn't until I saw Cristiano Ronaldo walking down the tunnel at Old Trafford just before the end of the game a few weeks ago against my old team Tottenham Hotspur Football Club that I realised that actually, he was human and he could be fallible. That was probably one of the first unprofessional things I'd ever seen him do. But like most events in football, and in life, we only really know one side of the story. As it transpired Cristiano Ronaldo, walked into a precarious position at Manchester United, that seemed like he would be unable to carry on with his contract or his career.

And then, of course, like most of the footballing world, I watched the interview that he did with Piers Morgan. And I don't think my opinion of this global icon could have changed anymore.

Before I watched the discussion, I thought this is a ridiculously bad idea for Cristiano to do an interview with Piers Morgan, who is not known necessarily for his values or his morals in the media world. Like most people who work in the press, and the media, they are always looking to get the insight story or a scoop.

But when I watched said interview, I don't think I could have had any more admiration and respect for the Portuguese superstar. I felt that he he was doing everything that he could to make himself, the players around him and, of course, Manchester United into an even better club.

Probably the scariest part of the whole interview was when he talked about the young players being around one of the greatest players to ever play football and their lack of interest in learning from the best.

For some reason, he said that very few ever listen to him, or ask him questions or try and understand what's allowed him to have this longevity in the game.

In my own experience, I was so fortunate to start my career at Spurs with the likes of Teddy Sheringham, David Ginola, Sol Campbell, Les Ferdinand, Nicky Barmby and Darren Anderton and then subsequently went on to play with top professionals like Craig Bellamy, Dean Ashton and Robert Green at Norwich City.?

To be around the best player in the world every single day would have been an absolute dream of mine because all I wanted to do was to learn from the players and coaches that i worked with. In fact, so keen was I to learn from my peers that at one stage in my early days, I got in touch with Gianfranco Zola's agent. I was only 23 and Gianfranco was at the peak of his powers whilst he starred for Chelsea every week!

I offered to take him out for lunch (which he accepted!) and managed to pick his brain and extract as much knowledge and information from that 60 minute lunch back in 2001. I even quizzed him on another footballing great, Diego Maradona as they played together at Napoli!

If I had the opportunity as a young player today to train with Ronaldo every single day and observe how he can still be performing, not necessarily at the peak of his powers, but incredibly well (he scored 24 goals last season) so let me tell you if you're walking out in the Premier League every single week in 2022, you're still a phenomenal athlete.

And so ultimately, the entire interview did nothing more than just put him even higher on that pedestal than I already had Cristiano Ronaldo on. Not just as one of the greatest footballers that ever played this game that we all love, but actually, possibly the greatest athlete that's ever walked this earth.

Ionically, for the last couple of days, I've been staring up at the outside of Old Trafford that displayed a 50 foot poster of Cristiano Ronaldo when I was delivering my first keynote for NHS Shared Business Services on Tuesday of this week,. Alongside CR7, were some of the other greats number 7's of Manchester United, such as Bryan Robson, David Beckham and Eric Cantona. By the time I finished for the day, went home and come back to deliver again on the second day, the entire Cristiano Ronaldo picture had been taken down and probably like most people, they thought that this is going to be the end of his career at Manchester United.?

However, in my opinion, this candid interview should be another reason why Manchester United should be keeping one of the best players in the world.