Few weeks into the summer after the 2016 Champions League final, both Antoine Griezmann and Cristiano Ronaldo happened to meet in a restaurant in Miami while on vacation. Griezmann was with his fiancee, but decided that it was the right time to give the Real Madrid forward, a piece of his mind.
According to an interview the Portuguese forward gave to France Football, Griezmann walked up to the Portuguese and confronted him. "The funny thing was, on vacation in Miami I came across Griezmann in a restaurant, he was with his fiancée,” said Ronaldo. ”He came up to my table and said to me with a smile: ‘I hate you’ ('Cristiano, je te déteste!')."
The Champions League final in 2016 saw two teams from the same city face each other for the second time in three years. Goals from Ramos and Carrasco led the game to penalties. Griezmann opened Atletico’s account but it was once again Ronaldo who blasted home the winning penalty.
Griezmann has quite frequently been at the receiving end of a world-class individual performance by the Portuguese talisman and it seems like it was too much for him to keep inside. The Frenchman also played the entire 90 minutes when Atletico played the Los Blancos in La Liga recently, where he suffered in silence as Ronaldo scored an easy looking hat-trick past The Red and Whites. The Atletico striker also suffered heartbreak with his country France, when they lost to Portugal in the finals of the Euro 2016.
Also read: La Liga 2016-17: Cristiano Ronaldo has put the Ballon d'Or debate to bed, says Zinedine Zidane
Ronaldo also spoke about the agony he suffered after suffering a horrific knee injury in the Euro 2016 final. The incident forced him to limp off the field with tears in his eyes. Just 23 minutes into arguably the biggest moment of his career, even the four-time world player of the year couldn’t control his emotions.
“I couldn’t bend my leg... it was then I realised it wasn’t going to be the final I had dreamt about, I couldn’t continue.” Luckily for him, Portugal went on to win the European Championships, and the drama unfolded with a limping Ronaldo encouraging his side on from the sidelines with comical enthusiasm.
These details came from an interview the Portuguese forward gave to France Football ahead of the Ballon d’Or ceremony.
In another interview, aired by French television programme Téléfoot, broadcast on TF1, Ronaldo spoke about this year's Ballon d'Or. “It’s been an incredible year for me, my best season. But the voting doesn’t depend on me so I can’t get obsessed about that. But if you were to ask me whether I want to win the Ballon d’Or, I’m not going to lie to you - obviously I do want to win it. I’m feeling confident because this has been my best season." he said.
