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Hargreaves: Ronaldo is a phenomenon

Cristiano Ronaldo has been dubbed a ‘phenomenon’ by former Manchester United team-mate Owen Hargreaves.

The former England international, now a BT Sport pundit, was full of praise for the Portuguese legend after scoring the 700th goal of his club career at Everton on Sunday.

“The numbers are ridiculous. The guy is just a phenomenon,” said Hargreaves, recalling Paul Scholes.

“In the team we had [at Manchester United], there were a lot of great players but he made the difference. We had Scholesy, a brilliant footballer, we had Giggsy, we had David Beckham, we had all these guys.

“But Cristiano is 1.80 meters tall, he’s fast with both feet, he can jump, he can do practically everything.

“I didn’t think he expected to score 700 goals. He had all these amazing skills but then he specialized in scoring.”

“For us he was the best player in the world and won the Ballon d’Or, but he went to Real Madrid and suddenly he made scoring easy. He was scoring 50-60 a season!” 700 goals, that’s 35 a season for 20 years!”