Djorkaeff names Ronaldo Nazario above Messi and Cristiano as the greatest of all time

Youri Djorkaeff has placed Ronaldo Nazario above both Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in his personal pantheon of the game’s greats, drawing on first-hand experience of playing alongside the Brazilian at Inter Milan during the late 1990s.

The former France international, who earned 82 caps for Les Bleus, was already established as Inter’s standout player when club president Massimo Moratti pulled him aside during training to discuss a potential signing. “While the rest of the team kept training, we walked around the pitch for about an hour,” Djorkaeff recalls. “He told me he had the chance to sign Ronaldo. He told me the price — around £25 million. ‘That’s cheap,’ I said. It was the most expensive transfer in history at the time, but we had to have him on the team.”

Moratti’s hesitation, Djorkaeff reveals, was less about the fee itself and more about the knock-on effect in the dressing room. “Moratti was nervous — he wasn’t sure if that signing might lead other players to ask for better contracts. But for me, it was an opportunity to play alongside the best striker in the world.”

The partnership between the two clicked immediately. “My first interaction with Ronaldo was great — I helped him settle in, and we clicked from the very first touch of the ball,” Djorkaeff says. “I don’t want to compare him against Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, but Il Fenomeno was the best. Very few players in the world have been able to change games on their own — Diego Maradona, Michel Platini, and in the ’90s, definitely Ronaldo.”

Ronaldo had arrived at the San Siro from Barcelona in 1997 for what was then a world record fee, having himself broken the previous record when he joined the Catalan club from PSV Eindhoven a year earlier. His time at Inter, though interrupted by injury, produced some of the most breathtaking individual football the Serie A era has witnessed.

For Djorkaeff, the peak of that Inter chapter came in Paris. The club won the UEFA Cup in May 1998 at the Parc des Princes — the very stadium where Djorkaeff had grown up watching his father play for PSG. “Facing Lazio in the final at the Parc des Princes was incredible. For me, it was home,” he says. “I grew up in PSG’s stadium when my father played there. There’s actually a photo from the day it was inaugurated, published in L’Equipe — my brother and I were on the pitch.”

The celebrations that followed left a lasting impression. “After the game, we organised a party and I went for a walk along the Champs-Elysees with Moratti. It was 3am, no-one saw us — magical.”