Wayne Rooney says Juventus’ signing of his former teammate Cristiano Ronaldo makes them his favourites to win the Champions League this season.
Rooney, who is now at D.C. United, played with Ronaldo at Manchester United from 2004 to 2009, and has backed the Portuguese forward to lead Juve to their first European Cup since 1996.
I think for any team to sign Cristiano Ronaldo, the excitement in that team will be massive, and I think for the Italian league it’s a huge bonus to get him playing in the league,” he told CNN Sport.
“He’ll do what he’s been doing for the last 10 years, he’ll bring goals to Juventus, and I fancy Juventus to win the Champions League this year solely for the fact Cristiano has gone there.”
Ronaldo, who made his Juventus debut in a 3-2 win at Chievo on Saturday, is aiming to win his fourth consecutive Champions League title, and sixth in total.
“As a person he’s a nice guy, a family guy, works hard and he’s always got his family around him which is great to see, especially someone so high-profile as Cristiano is,” Rooney continued.
“But he works hard and deserves all the credit he gets because he’s put that effort in to be at the top, and to be there and score so many goals for so long, you have to give him all the credit in the world.”
Rooney also spoke highly of another former Manchester United teammate, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who is also shining in MLS in his first season with the LA Galaxy.
“Yeah, Zlatan is a great player. I think it’s great for the league to have him in it,” Rooney said. “He’s one of the best players in certainly over the last 10 years. You see his qualities straight away, he scores goals, he creates goals.
“Hopefully when we play against him I can come out on top but no, for the league it’s great to have someone like Zlatan in the league.”
And Rooney added that Ibrahimovic’s first question to him when he moved to MLS was, “Why didn’t I join him in L.A.?”
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