Ronaldo: “You have to treat footballers like Hollywood stars”

“I hope I don't suffer so much. I had all the blood indicators up, high blood pressure …”, he says Ronaldo Nazário to Florentino Pérez in the first moments of 'President', the DAZN documentary that tells of his beginnings as the top manager of Real Valladolid. The smile of the head of Real Madrid seems premonitory, not necessarily of the current moment that his friend's entity lives, but of how much he had left to suffer on that path that he undertook in 2018.

In a hint of dispelling any doubts that may remain, the Brazilian explains that this project is personal, his, as he recalled in that press conference he offered in December of last year. “I buy the club with money from my pocket. There is no external investment or investment fund. I have no partners, it is a project of mine. I am here to earn money, but above all to leave a legacy in this club “, confirms the president,

After an experience in American football and training in London, he risked “more” and acquired Valladolid, in order to have “the opportunity to have a project without limits in sports or social matters”. Speaking of the latter, Ronaldo says that one of the things he loves is “going down to the fan zone and seeing that people are having a good time.” So, well, he spent it with the squad in Ibiza after inviting them after achieving salvation in his first season. Then I wanted to go back and said that the footballers “You have to treat them like Hollywood stars”, as they are the patrimony of the club.

Despite this condition, the documentary recalls some of the adventures that the team went through during the preseason on North American soil, such as when the police took the squad out of a training camp. Even with that bad experience (in general, the tour was not good), the president affirmed that “The United States and Asia are markets that had to” keep attacking “to be recognized” as a global brand “.

And, deep down, Ronaldo's intention was for the entity to grow, because “if the club grows, people grow” and “that's what it is about, that people are happy” with their work, no only from the joy of victories. “One of the things that gives me the most pleasure is seeing how we are changing the history of this club”, says emphatically at a moment of the first chapter the president of a Real Valladolid with whom, unfortunately, this season he can suffer his first decline as president.

Operation Oikos

Before that can be consummated, perhaps its most complicated moment was the one derived from the investigation on Borja Fernandez within the framework of 'Operation Oikos', which focuses the first minutes of the second chapter. The surprise about what happened was evident and Ronaldo is “surprised” that it could have happened under his mandate. “It seemed strange to me that one of my players had committed this crime”, he goes so far as to assert, before Borja was exempted from all blame (the phrase was recorded last season).

The offer for Guardiola

As often happens in series of this style belonging to the football field, the transfer market is also reflected, in this case, the summer of the 2019-20 season. Ronaldo and Miguel Ángel Gómez talk about an operation with a purchase option of seven million euros and Sandro Ramírez is defined by the president as “a great signing” and as a player “of great talent”.

Perhaps the most surprising moment, and more to the last bull, seeing his performance this course, comes when Gómez says that he “would not sell Sergi Guardiola for 15 million”, urged by Matthieu Fenaert to value this option as attractive as it is a third of the budget. The sports director even talks about an offer from Espanyol of ten million euros, while the CEO of the club goes so far as to mention the importance of the 15, which seems to suggest that the figure offered came to be that. In the end, in any circumstance, the decision not to sell, based on the sports project, was made by Ronaldo, 'El Presidente'.