2 months ago
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Cristiano Ronaldo may be in the final stages of his career, but he remains a regular starter and goalscorer for Portugal, more than two decades since making his international debut.
Nevertheless, while he can claim to be the most prominent figure during his tenure with the Selecao, he wasn't necessarily the most gifted player of his era. Former Liverpool forward Peter Crouch faced Ronaldo on nine occasions at club level, securing victory just once - when Crouch netted the decisive goal for the Reds against Ronaldo's Manchester United in a 2006 FA Cup encounter.
Several years prior, they met representing their respective nations' U21 teams, but Ricardo Quaresma left a greater impression on the striker than the youthful Ronaldo.
Crouch was among a gifted England U21 squad that travelled to Portugal in March 2003, featuring the likes of Joe Cole, Michael Carrick, and Gareth Barry in the starting XI. They proved no match for Ronaldo and Quaresma, however, with both wingers finding the net in a 4-2 Portugal victory.
Scarcely a year afterwards, Ronaldo and fellow U21s standout Helder Postiga were included in the senior Portugal squad that eliminated England from Euro 2004.
By that point, observers understood what to anticipate, but circumstances were rather different when Ronaldo was mere months away from his Premier League switch to Manchester United in 2003.
"It's an absolute privilege to have played against [Zlatan] Ibrahimovic, Ronaldinho, [Lionel] Messi, Ronaldo. I felt privileged to have been on the same pitch as them," Crouch told Mirror Football.
"I played against Cristiano Ronaldo when he was kind of unknown, with the England Under-21s against Portugal Under-21s.
"[It was] him and Quaresma on the wing, and that was - because we didn't know anything about them... we had J'Lloyd Samuel and Paul Konchesky as full-backs and I was saying, 'J, get tight, what's the matter with you, you're getting ripped!' but little did we know it was Quaresma and Ronaldo.
"In all honesty I felt [Quaresma] was slightly better at that time, but what Ronaldo has gone on to achieve... I remember Quaresma played a 60, 70 yard pass, Ronaldo was controlling it on his back and then just going at the full-back, and I thought, 'Who's this guy?'"
While Ronaldo boasts over 200 Portugal appearances and continues adding to that tally, Quaresma's journey took a rather different path.
He stayed as a winger rather than transforming himself into a prolific goalscorer like his countryman, though still earned a respectable 80 senior international caps - even coming off the bench to replace Ronaldo in the Euro 2016 final.
Regarding club soccer, high-profile moves to Barcelona and Inter Milan proved less successful than his periods at Porto and Besiktas, with him featuring for merely 34 minutes during Inter's Champions League triumph in 2009/10.
His sole experience of Premier League football came via a four-match loan at Chelsea, with boss Luiz Felipe Scolari being dismissed just one week after securing his signature for Stamford Bridge.
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