You have to be very bold or very stupid to kick Cristiano Ronaldo, whether in training or in a match. There was one player who did it accidentally, but the incident did not go unnoticed because he “hit” Real Madrid’s most important asset at the time.
It was March 2017 when it happened. The season was already coming to an end and the youth player Manu Hernando, who had just been given the chance to train with the first team, stuck his leg out at the Portuguese by mistake.
I accidentally kicked Cristiano. I really didn’t mean to, I didn’t even want to put my foot in, but in one that I saw that I was sure to get there, I went to the ground. He touched the ball a little before me and I ended up kicking him in the Achilles tendon. Criminal. I thought what a mess I’ve got myself into. That year I didn’t train again
Everything was just a scare; however, the boy did not return to training with the first team. It was rumored that Ronaldo and the Madrid management gave the order to separate him because of what happened. The reality, as he told Cadena SER in an interview, is that the training sessions were already scheduled for starters, substitutes and youth teams.
A brief stigma against Manu Hernando
After that incident, news began to emerge that the boy had ruined his career by hitting the world soccer genius. There was much talk that he had closed the doors of trying out with the first team and that he had been excluded from any possibility for having attacked Cristiano Ronaldo.
Hernando has clarified that Real Madrid never excluded or punished him. On the contrary, they even considered him for a place on the bench in the first team squad; however, during the 2018 pre-season he was injured and that ruled him out of consideration for the following campaign.
Manu Hernando is a Spanish footballer who plays as a central defender for Tondela
He joined Real Madrid’s youth academy in 2017 and stayed for three seasons. Although the Spanish footballer had a youth contract, he often trained with the first team and even had the opportunity to do a pre-season with the senior squad
He is now a player for Racing Santander in the Spanish second division. His career has taken him through the promotion circuit at teams such as Castilla, Ponferradina, Amorebieta and Tondela, the latter in Portugal.
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