Christiano Ranaldo's Old Chat with Patrice Evra Before 2019 Manchester United Comeback Shows His Winning Mindset

Manchester United continue to show signs of revival under interim manager Ralf Rangnick, as the Premier League giants are looking to go all the way in all of European competitions. The Red Devils beat West Ham United 1-0 before the break in the Premier League, before that in November last year they qualified for the knockout stage of the UEFA Champions League with a 2-0 victory and a game to spare. United were then led by interim manager Michael Carrick following the firing of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Cristiano Ronaldo’s 78th-minute goal put United ahead, while Jadon Smith’s 90th-minute strike sealed the victory to secure progress as the winner of Group F.

Rangnick’s men have a busy month ahead and they will be heavily banking on their talismanic striker who now has a record-extending 140 Champions League goals in his career. Apart from PL and FA Cup fixtures, United will clash with La Liga behemoths Atletico Madrid in the RD-16 first leg of the Champions League on February 24.

The upcoming mouth-watering contest brings memories of Ronaldo’s achievements in Europe’s premier competition from 2019. The star striker who was then plying his trade for Serie A club Juventus, single-handedly produced one of the greatest ever comebacks in Champions League against Atletico that year. The Spanish giants had claimed a huge 2-0 victory over the Serie A champions in the first leg, however, Ronaldo got his sweet revenge by delivering a performance for the ages by scoring a hat-trick to see his side trump 3-2 on that night. The Portuguese star scored a goal in the first half followed up by two in the second, including a ruthless penalty sending Juventus through to the quarter-finals.

Ronaldo was so confident of winning that game, as his former Manchester United teammate Patrice Evra later revealed the text messages the two shared five days prior to that sizzling match. The Frenchman in 2019 had shared a screenshot of their private chat on Instagram, which shows the scary levels of the Portuguese star. Evra can be seen messaging that he’s counting on him and his friend duly responded, ‘Home we smash them.’ And that’s exactly what Ronaldo did!

“These are messages between me and Cristiano, five days before the massive comeback. This just shows you the confidence, the anger, the determination from the best player in the world,” Evra wrote in the caption

See it here:

Ronaldo not only stuck to his word, but a day later sent a thumbs-up emoji before sending a quick selfie to prove what he meant.