Highlights

• Ronaldo's work ethic and desire to be the best have contributed to his status as one of the greatest footballers ever.
• He surrounds himself with a team of experts to ensure he stays in top condition and avoids serious injuries.
• Ronaldo's winning mentality extends beyond the football pitch, as seen in his determination to excel in table tennis and other aspects of life.

Cristiano Ronaldo has an elite mentality like no other. The Portuguese footballer's desire to be the best is absolutely astonishing. Sure, he's incredibly talented and has ability unlike almost anyone who has ever stepped onto a football pitch, but a large reason for his ascension to the top of the sport is due to the incredibly hard work he's put in over the years.

He's put in immense amounts of work and that's exactly why he's one of the greatest footballers that has ever lived. In September 2021, Rio Ferdinand, who was Ronaldo's teammate for six years at United, gave an insight into Ronaldo's unmatched mentality in a chat with former heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua and it shows just how ridiculous his work ethic is.

Ferdinand claimed Ronaldo is the best player he ever played with

He praised Ronaldo's desire to be the best

Joshua asked Ferdinand to name the best player he ever played with. The former centre-back has played with some of the Premier League's greatest-ever stars, such as Paul Scholes, Wayne Rooney and Ryan Giggs, but he responded with Ronaldo, before discussing his 'relentless' desire to be the best.

"Ronaldo is just ridiculous. His desire to be the best was just relentless. I've never seen anything like it. Just a man possessed to get to the top and would do anything to get there. He was brave to take risks, he came over to another country. He was brave to remain the person that he was and didn’t change really.

“He became obsessed with the sport that he chose and then drilled down into details which was building a team around himself. I went round his house one time and I walked in, and he had about six/seven people sitting in his front room. I said to him, ‘Cris, who are all these people, man?’

“He was like, ‘That’s my personal masseur, my nutritionist, my doctor, my physio, my chef.’"

The star has managed to keep himself in perfect condition throughout his career, playing at least 30 times a season every single year going back to the 2002-03 campaign at Sporting CP. He's managed to avoid picking up any form of serious injury throughout his entire career and that's largely due to the work he's put in to protect himself.

Ferdinand believes that Ronaldo has always been ahead of the curve when it comes to preparing his body and keeping himself in the best shape possible.

"He had all these people and back then no one was doing that. He was a visionary in that sense. He’s just looking for every little detail that’s going to enable him to improve. He’ll send me a picture, and he’s doing deep water recovery sessions in the sea. He’s driven two hours to get there when he was in Turin with Juventus.

“Other people are at home or out at dinner. He’s just looking for that extra edge.”

Watch footage of Ferdinand's conversation with Joshua below.

Ronaldo continues to do ridiculous things on the football pitch. Most professional footballers have hung up their boots by the time they hit their late 30s, but Ronaldo looks as if he has many years left in the tank and is still performing at an incredibly high level for Al-Nassr in the Saudi Pro League. His work rate is a large reason for that and Rio isn't the only former Manchester United man to speak publicly about Ronaldo's winning mentality.

Patrice Evra shared a hilarious story about Ronaldo

It shows his winning mentality stretches beyond the pitch

To be quite as successful as Ronaldo has been, you need a winning mentality unlike anyone else, and it's pretty obvious that the former Real Madrid man has that in spades. It seems his determination to succeed stretches far beyond just the football pitch too, with former teammate Patrice Evra sharing a hilarious story about him back in 2018 during an appearance on the FIFA World Cup podcast.

“They were playing table tennis and Rio beat him and we were all screaming and Ronaldo was so upset. Then he sent his cousin to buy a table tennis table. He trained for two weeks at home and he came back and he beat Rio in front of everyone. That’s Cristiano Ronaldo.

“That’s why I am not surprised today that he wants to win another Golden Ball, why he wants to win the World Cup because he’s an angry man.”

The story was short but sweet and perfectly highlighted the sort of player Ronaldo is and just how determined he is to avoid failure in all facets of life. It's hard not to admire the level of dedication that the Portuguese superstar has had throughout his football career, and it's quite satisfying to know that he's exactly the same outside of the sport too.