Cristiano Ronaldo ‘thrilled’ with Portugal’s new generation of players
The Portuguese international said: “If you want to play in the Champions League, you need a team and a coach who are there. I feel it in my bones. This generation is now, they are ready. Now we can play with them. They are young. We have to make the most of this opportunity.”
“It’s a big challenge for the new generation, we must look forward, we need to see everything, we have to learn from everything we have done. Sometimes you have to go back in the past to understand how things worked.”
Ronaldo added: “Football is the only thing where it’s possible to grow. You can get older, you can mature, and you can become wiser. The more you do, the more mature you become. I will stay with the team. I will continue to play and I will do my job to help and I hope it will be good for the team. But it’s not my responsibility to know whether we will win or not.
“It’s in the hands of the coach now. He will tell me what to do and I am going to do my part. I will keep my feet on the ground, continue to help my teammates, the fans, make sure [the team] doesn’t end up in an impossible situation. And if it doesn’t go well, we will correct what we have done and move forward, and then we will see what happens from there, if we will be in the Champions League. There will be a lot of things we have to do, a lot of things going on. I’m at the most of a football manager, at the most of a manager. It’s in the hands of the coach.
“There is a new generation of players coming through. We are always looking for the best, because there are a lot. We have to learn. It’s difficult, yes, but we have to learn. We have to learn all the time. You need to have a lot of patience. At the end of the day, you have to win the game.”
Earlier this week, Ronaldo
