Cristiano Ronaldo has responded after a former teammate of his claimed he could have won the Ballon d'Or over the Portuguese superstar if he worked harder.
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Speaking on a recent podcast, former Sporting Lisbon academy player Fabio Paim controversially claimed that the five-time Ballon d'Or winner might have won the award fewer times if he had dedicated himself to the sport.
Paim, now 35, also said he could have been on the level of both Ronaldo and eight-time victor Lionel Messi in quotes carried by the Daily Mirror.
"Cristiano Ronaldo should offer me one of his Ballons d'Or. I went to Sporting when I was seven years old, I grew up there," he said on the PT Clipes podcast.
"They were years of glory in which I won everything I could. I didn't reach where I could have reached, but I marked a generation. If people don't forget, it's because I marked them.
"I said when I was happy that I thought Cristiano Ronaldo could offer me a Ballon d'Or. But it was with humility. If I had half of Cristiano's head, it wouldn't be him and Messi.
"It would be me, him and Messi, and maybe he wouldn't have won the Ballon d'Or that he has. Maybe one of them was mine."
Responding to a clip of Paim's podcast interview, though, the Al Nassr forward hit back with a brutal reaction in the comments section, in which he wrote: "Wtf. Who is this guy?"
Paim and the former Manchester United winger are believed to have been teammates at youth level before Ronaldo's big move to the Red Devils in 2003.
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The Portugal international secured his first Ballon d'Or while in England, in 2008, before winning four more during his time at Los Blancos in Spain.
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