Dani Alves has lifted the lid on a controversy that never came to light from a Ballon d'Or ceremony and revealed he and Cristiano Ronaldo got into a scuffle.
The full-back played for Barcelona for eight years, between 2008-16, while Ronaldo turned out for Real Madrid between 2009-18. In the seven years they competed against one another, Barcelona won La Liga five times with Real Madrid winning just once.
The rivalry between both sides was incredibly fierce with Ronaldo setting a no holds barred attitude to win, meaning every El Clasico clash was a feisty affair. Add to the mix Ronaldo's personal rivalry with Lionel Messi, and the layers kept coming.
Ronaldo and Messi competed to be the world's best player over a 10-year period, between 2008-17, with the former winning five and the latter winning the same. The Argentinian has since gone on to claim a further two gongs.
And it was at one of these ceremonies that Ronaldo's rivalry with Barcelona came to a head. Alves, whose competitive nature matches that of Ronaldo's has revealed that the pair clashed.
"There came a time because of the rivalry that I would go over to greet him [Ronaldo] and he wouldn't greet me," he said on a podcast with UNAM Pumas teammate Efrian Valverde.
"There was a controversy that never came out, but in the dressing room of the Ballon d'Or ceremony we had a scuffle, I greeted everyone and he didn't greet me because of what the Barcelona-Real Madrid rivalry was generating outside. But how can I not respect a guy who has achieved everything based on hard work and putting his heart and soul into it?"
And any such animosity towards Ronaldo has since softened with the right-back going on to say how much he respects Ronaldo. “I love Cristiano,” he said.
“Now that we are no longer at Barça and Madrid I can speak, because it always seemed like I couldn’t. Cristiano exemplifies, for all of us who don’t have that much quality, that with hard work you can also compete against the best. I respect him a lot and I had the opportunity to tell him."
He added: "I identify with him, because everything I did in my life was based on that,” Alves explained. “If you made a comparison, as a player, I am closer to Cristiano than to Leo because of the work, not because of the talent, because Leo is a born talent, who was born with the talent to play football and to be in another world that only he achieves,”
