5 managers who successfully stopped Cristiano Ronaldo

#4 Carlo Ancelotti

Carlo Ancelotti used Gennaro Gattuso to keep Ronaldo quiet while managing Milan

Back in 2006/07 – with Ronaldo quickly becoming perhaps the most feared attacking player in world football – one of his future managers at Real Madrid found a way to stop the Portuguese forward. At the time, Carlo Ancelotti was manager of AC Milan, and he came up against Ronaldo in the semi-finals of the Champions League while CR7 was starring in Manchester United’s attack alongside fellow superstar Wayne Rooney.

Ronaldo and Rooney had developed a frightening partnership based on an ability to switch positions practically at will – with one man dropping deeper and the other racing forward – and the 2006/07 season saw them almost at their devastating best, scoring 46 goals between them as United won the Premier League.

In the first leg of their tie with Milan, it was Ronaldo and Rooney who did the most damage – they ran out 3-2 winners at Old Trafford with Ronaldo scoring once and Rooney twice, and they created a glut of chances that went astray too. It was only the brilliance of Kaka that allowed Milan to remain in the tie.

The second leg, however, was a different story entirely. This time Ancelotti had drilled his defence to be fully aware of Rooney and Ronaldo’s style of play, and more devastatingly for the Portuguese, he tasked human pitbull Gennaro Gattuso with largely man-marking him.

In the end, Ronaldo was barely given a kick and cut a totally dejected figure as Milan dominated the game and ran out 3-0 winners to progress to the final. The likes of Massimo Oddo and Alessandro Nesta defended tremendously for Milan but it was the hatchet job from Gattuso that really kept Ronaldo quiet – a masterstroke from one of the most underrated bosses in the game in Ancelotti.