Rene Meulensteen was Sir Alex Ferguson’s coach when Manchester United won the Champions League, and now he has highlighted four specific players as the most naturally gifted.
Rene Meulensteen spent six years as a first-team coach under Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, in different roles, between 2007 and 2013.
During this time, Meulensteen worked with plenty of talented footballers, many of whom are now in the United history books as club legends.
But he has now picked out just four that were the most naturally gifted.
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Rene Meulensteen names his four most naturally gifted players
Meulensteen’s four names picked are exactly who you would expect, as the former United coach told SACKED who he’d picked and why.
“When I saw that question, listen all those players at Manchester United were naturally gifted. Otherwise, you’re not playing at that level.
“There are there are natural players that have naturally a level of pace more you know I mean naturally gifted straight away come to my mind obviously Ryan Giggs was very naturally gifted within everything that he did there was a balance there was a change of pace there was a an element of disguise in his game that not many that not many people not many other players had.
“You look at the ease with which Paul Scholes, you know, moved the ball around the you know, and used also disguise in his passing, but he would hit 60, 70, 80 yards, you know, for fun.
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“Wayne Rooney was naturally gifted and driven by power and strength.
“Cristiano Ronaldo again was another, you know, very naturally gifted player because he had that combination of power and strength and pace and unbelievable skill.
“So yeah, all of them, all of them would have some level of naturally gifted aspects to their game because otherwise, you know, you wouldn’t possibly be playing at Manchester United.”
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Meulensteen helped turn Cristiano Ronaldo into a world-class forward
Of the four, Ronaldo is perhaps the player who had the highest peak, which is no slight to the others, given he is a greatest of all time contender.
Speaking to BBC Sport in 2024, Meulensteen recalled one time he worked one-on-one with Ronaldo.
“Two words that spring to mind straight away for Ronaldo are ‘drive’ and ‘focus’.
“He was obviously much younger when he came, but he was just so talented and obviously, when you bring a lot of talent through the door, there is a lot of potential. The key for us was to unlock it.
“I was fortunate that he got suspended during one season and didn’t travel when the first team was away for matches, so I had two or three consecutive days to work with him.
“I wanted to turn Cristiano from someone who could score a goal into a goalscorer – and I just needed him to understand what the difference was.”
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