Brendan Rodgers explains his special connection to the Portuguese language even though he has never worked with it.
Brendan Rodgers, coach of Al Qadsiah, explained his special connection to Cristiano Ronaldo, the Al Nassr forward with whom he never shared a locker room. The last meeting between the two took place on May 3rd, when Al Qadsiah won 3-1.
In an interview with the club’s media, Rodgers says that his relationship with the Portuguese player is almost 20 years old.
Our connection goes back a long way. When I was a young coach at Chelsea, my mother was at a game against Manchester United. She wanted to meet Ronaldo, who was her favorite player at the time, even though I was working for Chelsea at the time. I spoke to Cristiano after the game, asked him if he could say hello to my mother, and he did. She passed away in 2010, the Northern Irishman began to explain.
When he met her, it meant everything to me and it meant everything to her. He spent time with her, took a picture, had kind words for her, and that has always stayed with me. And our connection has remained since that moment,” she continued.
In his first season in Saudi Arabia, Brendan Rodgers admits that the arrival of the Portuguese player in the country marked a paradigm shift.
“He’s a man who has done incredible things in his career, which is probably why so many people are here, coming from Europe and all over the world. But I’ll never forget that moment, because it was very special for my mother and obviously for me. My mother wasn’t a Manchester United fan, but she was a football fan. She knew what a good player was, concluded the 53-year-old coach.