“I’m deciding whether to accept a new bet”

2007-02-05
Cristiano Ronaldo scored his 15th goal, won his bet with Ferguson and equalled Drogba in leading the highest scorers




Alex Ferguson lost £ 400 this afternoon to Cristiano Ronaldo, or he will lose if the bet is not re-arranged, as was recently suggested by the Manchester coach, who claimed, jokingly, that he made the rules. “I still haven’t had a chance to talk to the coach”, said Cristiano Ronaldo to Gestifute Media. “At the end of the game, it was all very quick, because a lot of players had to go and meet up with their national teams, as in my case, and I didn’t have time to talk about the subject, but when I get back to Manchester we are going to talk”, he added. It was the first time that Cristiano Ronaldo has got the better of Ferguson: in the first year, he had bet 10 goals and the player scored nine, and last season he bet 15 and only scored 12. The bet this third season was the same.
At the moment, Cristiano Ronaldo still does not know what he’s going to do. And now he has reached his target, there is a chance that they will re-set the bet, as Ferguson suggested. “We’ll see when I get back. I still don’t know if I’m going to take it. Maybe we’ll reach an agreement and place a new bet. I don’t know… I am going to think about this and later we’ll see what we do”, he said with a huge smile.
If the decision is made to re-arrange the bet, Cristiano Ronaldo doesn’t know what number of goals will be on the table. “I hope to get a few more, but I really don’t know. The only guarantee I can give is that I will continue to work just as hard to continue to develop. But of course I hope to get more. I just don’t know how many”.
A well as beating Ferguson, the forward who Gestifute represent equalled Didier Drogba in the list of highest scorers in the Premier League, but this is not his principal objective. “It is good to be in this position, but the most important thing was the victory for Manchester and that we will hold on to a six point lead over Chelsea”, he explained. “Whether or not I am the highest scorer is less important, because I am not bothered about being top. What I am concerned about is Manchester being the best, and we are on the right track to win the title”.
The truth is that, whether he gets the money or not, the Portuguese phenomenon got his 15th goal of the season in 24 games, having got the first for United in their 4-0 win over Tottenham this afternoon (scoring from a penalty which he had won), and also setting up the third. It was a sort of early birthday present to himself, as he reaches 22 talented years today. “It’s funny that I thought about it before the game”, he confessed. “This game, the goal and the assist was a present that I gave myself and it was very good, it was a great present”, he added.
Cristiano Ronaldo played a major role in another important victory for Manchester United, who didn’t submit to the pressure imposed by the victory for Chelsea the previous day. Playing in London at Tottenham, United started their scoring after a foul on Cristiano Ronaldo in the eighteen-yard box, in the first minute of time added on before the interval. The Portuguese international himself turned a penalty into a goal, placing a strong shot inside the right post, and then celebrating his 15th goal of a season that has been notable since the start.
But the adventures of Cristiano Ronaldo didn’t end here. Because between long distance shots that tested the opposing goalkeeper Robinson, the forward set up the third goal for Manchester United, thanks to an absolutely fantastic move in which he danced past Lee before reaching the touch line and placing a perfect cross, which Paul Scholes only had to nudge to put the ball into the bottom of the net. That was after 54 minutes, and moments before Vidic had given his team a 0-2 lead.
With the game won, because every time United attacked there was panic in the Tottenham defence, Alex Ferguson decided to change his biggest stars, taking Cristiano Ronaldo off 23 minutes before the end. It was while he was in the changing room that the Portuguese player saw his team’s fourth goal (77mins), scored by Giggs.
With this win, Manchester kept their six-point lead over Chelsea. And Cristiano Ronaldo is now top of the list of highest scorers in the Premier League, alongside Drogba.