Dalot reveals Ronaldo warned him a Man United striker lacked the fire to succeed

Diogo Dalot has revealed that Cristiano Ronaldo privately identified a Manchester United teammate as destined to fail at Old Trafford during their shared 2021-22 season — not because of a lack of goals, but because of a lack of hunger.

Writing in The Players’ Tribune, the Portugal full-back described a conversation in which Ronaldo pointed to a striker who had scored twice in a match as someone who would not last. “We had a striker here who did really well for us in his first season, but Cristiano said, ‘He’s not gonna make it here’,” Dalot wrote. “I said, ‘Cris, he scored two goals today!’ He said, ‘Yeah, but he didn’t have the fire to go for the third.’”

Dalot does not name the player, and the statistics from that campaign offer no definitive answer. The only outfield player beyond Ronaldo himself to score a brace across all competitions that season was Bruno Fernandes, who netted twice in a January draw at Aston Villa. The strikers on United’s books at the time were Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial, Mason Greenwood, and Edinson Cavani.

Ronaldo had returned to United in the summer of 2021 in a surprise move from Juventus under then-manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, rejoining a club that had spent years chasing the standards set during the Sir Alex Ferguson era. His second spell lasted just 18 months before ending acrimoniously following a public interview with Piers Morgan, after which he moved to Saudi Arabia.

Now 41, Ronaldo continues to play and score regularly in the Saudi Pro League, and Dalot is adamant he deserves his place in Portugal’s squad for the 2026 World Cup this summer. “To me, it’s totally crazy that anyone could even debate whether he should play at the World Cup,” Dalot wrote. “Is he running like he’s 22? No. Is he scoring a goal per game? Yes. Does he make us all better? Yes.”

Dalot credited the 2021-22 season alongside Ronaldo as a turning point in his own development. “That season with Cristiano was when I really started to grow as a player and as a person,” he wrote. “I lost count of the number of predictions he got right, because he knows so well what it takes to go to the top.”