Eric Cantona Hits Out At Cristiano Ronaldo

Cristiano Ronaldo has gone through a turbulent year in 2022. Suffering toxic criticism followed by a controversial interview he gave with Piers Morgan, he saw his contract at Manchester United mutually terminated. Since then, the Portuguese striker has moved to Saudi Arabia to play for Al Nassr. However, club legend Eric Cantona has spoken out regarding the striker’s behavior.

After spending twelve years of his career at Real Madrid, Ronaldo made a scintillating comeback to Old Trafford. However, things didn’t move on as smoothly as he would have expected. After a lackluster season at the club, the following season Ronaldo experienced toxicity in the dressing room followed by the Coach benching him during important matches.

Even after what was termed a low-scoring season for a player of Ronaldo’s caliber, the striker scored 18 goals in the league. Despite this, Eric Ten Hag dropped him from the playing 11. This decision would end up hurting both the club and the player. Ronaldo faced criticism following an incident where he was seen leaving the stadium even before the match had ended.

After lashing out at the club and the manager in the Piers Morgan interview, Ronaldo found himself in Saudi Arabia signing with Al-Nassr in a lucrative deal.

Eric Cantona Takes A Shot At Cristiano Ronaldo

Eric Cantona said, via Samuel Luckhurst of The Manchester Evening News, “He came back here and United wasn’t the United he left, and sometimes he doesn’t realize things changed. So maybe he was surprised so many things changed.”

“You have two kinds of players: the one who wants to play every game because they still think they’re 25 years old and the ones who realize they are not 25 years old and they are here to help the young players, they know they will not play every game, they know they will play some games.

“But their part is to help the young players. Like (Zlatan) Ibrahimovic still does it with Milan, Ryan Giggs or (Paolo) Maldini when he was in Milan. But I think Ronaldo didn’t realize – and he still doesn’t realize – he’s not 25 years old. He’s just older and he should have realized that instead of being not happy to play some games, say, ‘okay, I am not 25 years old, I cannot play every game, but I will help the young players and accept that situation and that’s my situation’.”

Many pundits are of the opinion that the 5-time Ballon d’Or winner has to accept the reality that he is no longer in his prime. However, others claim that he still has a few years left in him. No matter what, at the end of the day Cristiano has still managed to land a bumper deal to continue playing the beautiful game.

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