Capello: ‘Ronaldo hardest to Coach’

By Football Italia staff

Fabio Capello names Ronaldo as the hardest player to deal with, but admits he was “the best I Coached”.

The pair were together at Real Madrid, but the Italian was left frustrated by the legendary striker’s lack of fitness.

“The toughest player to deal with? Everyone thinks it’s [Antonio] Cassano,” Capello laughed, speaking at the Football Leader conference.

“Antonio was young, great on the pitch but crazy off it. He had to be straightened-out, there were others on the team who made him feel calm.

“The most difficult to handle was the best I Coached: Ronaldo, il Fenomeno.

“I’ll tell you why. I was in charge at Real, he came back from an injury and come to us in November to restart.

“He weighed 96 kilos, boxing stuff. I asked him how much he weighed when he won the World Cup and he said 84kg, so I asked him to at least get to 88.

“It was a shame, he didn’t want to make the smallest sacrifice and the best he managed was 94kg. He played three games in partnership with [Ruud] Van Nistelrooy and we lost all three.”

Capello was also asked about the state of Italian football, and believes more clubs need their own stadiums.

“You need to have teams owning stadiums, otherwise there’s nothing you can do. In Germany and England there are so many fans, here our stadiums comes alive every 15 days and it’s not good.

“The stadium has to be alive every day.

“Then from a technical point of view it’s important to help the youth sectors. When I was Coaching the Milan primavera I went to schools and I saw kids who were happy to play.

“Now there are footballs schools which are run like a business. I don’t like that, I understand parents - who are perfectly within their rights to do so - who take their kids to these schools, but some aren’t up to it.”

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