Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Sheffield Wednesday Midfielder, Jose Semedo Reveals How Cristiano Ronaldo Changed His Life

Cristiano Ronaldo may be the World Player of the Year, and be nominated for a third Ballon d’Or in a row, but he did not always have things his own way.
The Real Madrid star was ‘the diamond’ of Sporting Lisbon’s academy as a youngster, but he was bullied by the other players because of his thick Madeira accent.

And things got so bad that he once threw a chair at a teacher who failed to stop the mocking, according to Sheffield Wednesday midfielder Jose Semedo, who grew up with Ronaldo at the Portuguese club.
‘He was the best,’ Semedo told the Times. He controlled the ball, outskilled everyone, didn’t pass the ball, scored. Oh my God. And then he spoke: he was from Madiera, and the accent there is very different.
‘Everyone started to laugh. He had a hard time with that accent. It sounded like it was not Portuguese. We couldn’t understand. He threw a chair at a teacher once because people were laughing and they didn’t stop it.’
But the pair, who are still close friends who speak most days, were once room-mates, and Ronaldo helped save Semedo’s career, when Sporting threatened to kick the youngster out of their academy.
Ronaldo, who was the golden boy of the youth set-up, told the club, at the age of 14, that if Semedo could not live at the club, he too would leave, and allowing his friend to live in his room.
‘I owe everything I have to him,’ admits Semedo. ‘The place I am from in Setubal is not a good place for a young man. A lot of my friends from there were involved in crime. Some of them are dead now, or in jail. If I had gone back, maybe I would have stolen cars with them. He changed my life. My family, my children, my career: it is all because of him.’
The 30-year-old Wednesday star also revealed, however, that they had their differences, particularly when it came to competing against each other.
Semedo claims that Ronaldo would not speak to him for several days if he lost a race to his team-mate, and began going to the gym on his own when friends mentioned his room-mate might be becoming the bigger of the two.
It is that refusal to lose, argues Semedo, that has made Ronaldo the incredible player he has become today.

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