Cristiano Ronaldo is not a more gifted footballer than Lionel Messi.
And that is the opinion of someone who won three Champions League trophies with the Portuguese icon at Real Madrid.
Not one of his ex-teammates, but someone equally as instrumental in his success – legendary club doctor Jesus Olmo Navas, who was head of medical and performance at Real Madrid from 2013-2017.
Dr Olmo sat across from me in his Isokinetic London office, where he is now a Medical Director and Consultant in Rehabilitation and Sports Medicine.
In a cabinet to my left were three mini Champions League trophies, a shirt with his name on it, and a UCL final-signed shirt from the entire squad, including CR7.
Naturally, among other things, I had to ask him about his relationship with Ronaldo and what set him apart from everyone else.
I expected a response to do with his work ethic, diet, and dedication.
What I didn’t expect was exactly why he had those things in abundance, the reason being Manchester‘s rainy climate.
Dr Olmo exclusively told SunSport: “The amount of personal training.
“He has a lot of talent, but he wasn’t the most gifted player I have seen.
“For me, Leo Messi and Marcelo were more gifted, even Gareth Bale. But Cristiano had one thing: his capacity for training.
“It started at Manchester United.
“He used to tell me, “I started training by myself because I went to Manchester, I saw the weather, and there was nothing to do. It’s a terrible city. What can I do?”
“So he started training by himself. He would train for 45 minutes with the team, and for three or four hours by himself at home, where he had training facilities.”
According to Olmo, Ronaldo, now 41, was the one who infused Real Madrid with the winning culture that made them such a force to be reckoned with in 2017, when Bale and Karim Benzema ran riot alongside Ronaldo himself.
In Olmo’s final season, Ronaldo scored 12 goals in the Champions League, including two hat-tricks, as well as racking up five assists.
In LaLiga, he scored 25 goals and got six assists in 29 matches.
Madrid won five out of a possible six trophies, and Olmo insists it is down to the culture as opposed to their plethora of world-class players.
He added: “You see social media now, all the players are doing work with an individual coach – back then, it was Ronaldo and Sergio Ramos, that wasn’t common.
“But it spread all over the team, that’s why we were so good. Because of the culture, he spread it to everything.
“The individual players would compete with each other to play on the weekend. If you get that culture right at a big club, you will win everything.
“When PSG had Messi, Neymar and Mbappe, I was told by people inside, it was a mess, because you would play on the weekend just because of your name – there was no culture of effort.”