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Football

14th Mar 2019

Patrice Evra shares pre-match WhatsApp messages from Cristiano Ronaldo

Safe to say he was confident

Darragh Murphy

Juventus supporters might have been concerned but Cristiano Ronaldo was anything but.

Reports in Spain claim that Ronaldo had assured friends and family that Juve would overcome a 2-0 first-leg defeat to Atletico Madrid and that he would score a hat-trick to send the Old Lady through to the quarter-finals of the Champions League.

While we have no more than media reports to rely on for that prediction, we have cold and hard evidence of Ronaldo’s confidence courtesy of his former Manchester United teammate, Patrice Evra.

Evra has shared some WhatsApp exchanges with Ronaldo that took place prior to the second leg on Tuesday night and in them, the Portuguese superstar promised to “smash them” in the home leg.

Ronaldo scored his eighth Champions League hat-trick against Atletico and even prompted some praise from his perennial Ballon d’Or rival, Lionel Messi.

“What Cristiano Ronaldo and Juventus did was impressive,” Messi told MARCA.

“I thought Atletico Madrid would be tougher. Ronaldo had a magical night with three goals.”

Ronaldo, meanwhile, might want to watch what he sends to Evra in future because the former France international clearly doesn’t hesitate to share any messages with the public.

He loves this game, after all.