Abu Dhabi: Gremio coach Renato Portaluppi, whose side could face Real Madrid in the final of the Fifa Club World Cup in Abu Dhabi this week, once claimed he was a better player than five-time Ballon d’Or winner Cristiano Ronaldo.
“Without a doubt I think I played better than he does,” he told ESPN Brasil of the Portuguese Real forward. “I would like to see Cristiano Ronaldo playing at the clubs I played at, some of them where we never got paid for three or four months, and winning trophies like I did.
“I want to be playing for Real Madrid today, playing once a week, on great fields, and with the teammates that Ronaldo has. I really want to see that.
“For sure,” Portaluppi said he was a better player, adding that there’s “no doubt that Ronaldo is a great player,” but he’s “not as versatile” as Portaluppi was.
“Ronaldo has a lot of strength, he doesn’t have a lot of technique. This current generation didn’t see me play. I guarantee that those who saw me play would have a different opinion (about who was the better player).”
Those comments could come back to haunt the 55-year-old former striker, who scored five in 41 appearances for Brazil between 1983 and 1993, especially if Gremio advance to December 16’s final against Real Madrid as expected.
Both sides have byes to midweek semi-finals against the winners of Saturday’s quarter-finals, and are the favourites to advance to the final.
Portaluppi qualified his side to this tournament by becoming the first Brazilian to win the Copa Libertadores as both a coach and a player last month, having first lifted it as a player with Gremio back in 1983.
He now looks to also reclaim the Club World Cup title for Gremio, 34 years after having won it first with the club as a player again back in 1983, when it was known as the Intercontinental Cup.
“I like winning and that’s what we are going there to do,” he said of Abu Dhabi. “It’s a great chance for me to become World Champion as a coach and a player.”
Portaluppi, known as Renato Gaucho, played for Gremio, Flamengo, Botafogo and Fluminense in the 1980s and a 1990s with a brief spell in Italy with Roma.
While at Flamengo he battled with Romario to become the league’s top-scorer and is most famous for a title winning goal at Fluminense that went in off his stomach. He also chased and caught a live vulture — the symbol of Flamengo — that had been thrown onto the field by fans.
He won the 1989 Copa America with Brazil and was part of their 1990 World Cup squad after having been dropped from the 1986 World Cup on disciplinary grounds for breaking a team curfew to go out partying.
“He is always drawing analogies with his own playing career and that makes him a fun person to be around,” said Gremio captain Pedro Geromel. “But it doesn’t mean he isn’t prepared. We know who our rivals are and where they are strong and he has helped us greatly with that.
“Our primary focus right now is on the semi-final. We won the Libertadores by keeping our feet on the ground and we’re going to stay that way.
“European teams are well ahead in terms of organisation and finance. They have astronomical revenue and they buy the best players from South America, which makes it very difficult to compete. But on the day it is 11 versus 11 and we’ll be giving it our all.”
- With inputs from agencies
