Man Utd ace Fernandes: How Ronaldo mental strength inspires me

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Man Utd ace Fernandes: How Ronaldo mental strength inspires me

Manchester United midfielder Bruno Fernandes has spoken of how Juventus star Cristiano Ronaldo is a career inspiration.

The pair will line up together at this summer's Euros, as Portugal defend their crown, with Ronaldo - who starred at United from 2003 to 2009 - captaining the Seleccao once again.

Fernandes told the club website: "When Cristiano began to take his first steps in the national team, it was in the Euros in our home country [Euro 2004], so I was nine years old.

"That year stays with everyone because we lost the final in Portugal, we saw him crying after the final, he was a young boy who was starting to shine and from there I started to watch him.

"It wasn't because he plays in my position because that wasn't the case, but it was the way he worked every day, the mentality he had, the capacity he had to give 100 per cent in every game at a high level, for me it was like a motivation, like you always have to do better.

"He was scoring goals every game, but game after game he was still trying to improve, get better."

And he added it's Ronaldo's resilience that he has shown throughout his career that Fernandes applies to his own game.

He said: "My mentality comes a little bit from understanding what sort of player you want to be. Do you want to be that player who has a good season, and maybe goes up and down, up and down, or do you want to be the player who always wants to be at the top?

"Okay, you will have bad games for sure, everyone has – Cristiano has had bad games, 100 per cent – but the point is, coming back from a bad game.

"Coming back with the mentality that is, 'okay I didn't play well in that last game and I really need to do well in this one'.

"The mentality to do better day after day is really important for me. I'm improving a lot because of this, and that was my biggest motivation."