Cristiano Ronaldo's 'cockiness' cost Manchester United team-mate and led to years of mental hell.
Inadvertently, a young and inexperienced Cristiano Ronaldo caused Manchester United legend and former manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer to endure a hellish spell on the sidelines.
Cristiano Ronaldo's naivety once caused ex-Manchester United player and manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer 'unbearable' pain.
When a fresh-faced Ronaldo arrived at Old Trafford in 2003, his talent was obvious, but his attitude, as one might expect from such a gifted teenager, needed work.
The Portuguese forward was developed into a superstar by Sir Alex Ferguson and has since scored over 900 career goals, but he wasn't always the impervious, near-perfect footballing specimen that many regard him as today.
Solskjaer, who spent 11 years at Manchester United before returning for a less successful managerial stint in 2018, has admitted that the Portuguese superstar once inadvertently caused him to suffer a traumatic knee injury that bothered him for years and eventually led to his retirement.
"We've signed Cristiano. We could see he was a huge talent who would become a superstar, but I was not going to back down," Solskjaer said in the new book Bring On United.
"I was stubborn, and it cost me one game against Wolves [August 2003, Old Trafford]. Cristiano was on the left. He competed against Denis Irwin while at Wolves.
"Cristiano didn't get any change out of Denis, so he kept changing positions to avoid him. Cristiano wasn't tracking back as he should have, so I ended up tracking his position and running more than I had in any previous game.
"Scholesy threw a ball behind me for me to run onto. I cut inside and stretched but felt my thighs and legs give way. I could feel my thighbone and kneecap. But I cut inside and shot with my left, missing the target before jogging off to change.
"That was the first time I f***ed my knee up. That marked the beginning of three years of injury hell. All because I wasn't expecting Manchester United to lose a game because a young player didn't track back."
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