Rio Ferdinand and Owen Hargreaves name their best Champions League opponents

Asked if he remembers Ronaldo scoring a famous hat-trick at Old Trafford in 2003, Rio cannot help but smile about a humbling experience. “Course I do. I played centre-back against him [laughs]. He’s another alien, he’s another alien!

“I know I always say this, but two of his goals, another goalkeeper saves it. Edwin [van der Sar] saves both of them. There’s two goals in that game [that could be saved] I think, but you still can’t discredit Ronaldo. He was a ridiculous footballer.

“Like Owen said before, there’s certain players where you say, ‘I’m a fan before anything’. There’s only Ronaldo and Zidane, they were the two main ones in my career where I went, ‘I’m actually a fan, when I was growing up, I was looking at you.’”