Back to the Manchester United Newsfeed

'Cristiano was raging - "who's this Scottish guy?"... then something clicked': Darren Fletcher reveals how Walter Smith transformed Ronaldo by introducing a brutal 'No Fouls' rule in Manchester United training to stop him hogging the ball

Darren Fletcher has delivered a fascinating insight into how Walter Smith helped transform Cristiano Ronaldo into a scoring machine and one of the greatest footballers of all time.

Smith joined Manchester United in March 2004 as part of Sir Alex Ferguson's backroom staff for a six month spell and came up with an ingenious way of ensuring Ronaldo stopped holding onto the ball for too long.

Smith introduced a punishing 'no foul' rule for training matches, which Fletcher said Ronaldo was 'raging' about before his adaptation helped him evolve to an unprecedented level.