Anderson has revealed that he and Nani lived with Ronaldo in Manchester while playing for United. The pair lived in his mansion for around a year and the ex-midfielder says that the Al-Nassr star had such a voracious appetite to improve that he would head to United’s training ground Carrington at 6:30am, three hours before training would start for the first-team.
Speaking to Globo, Anderson praised Ronaldo’s mentality, saying: “Nani and I lived at Cristiano Ronaldo’s house for almost a year. Training was at 9:30 am, but sometimes we had to go at 6:30 am, because Ronaldo was at the club and we went with him. Nani and I slept there on the stretchers and waited, because his work had to start. If I had 5 per cent of CR7’s mentality, I would be among the 20 best midfielders at that time… As soon as I arrived, I went to Cristiano’s house. I thank him very much. He adopted me. We lived at Ronaldo’s house for almost a year. We left because we wanted to leave. For him we would stay there… The guy took us to training, fed us, had a cook for us. There was a swimming pool inside and outside the house, a jacuzzi, a tennis court.”
Anderson spent a total of eight years at United between 2007 and 2015, where he made 181 appearances and won a clutch of trophies. He won the Premier League four times, the League Cup twice, the Champions League and the Club World Cup. After leaving United, he headed to Internacional, then Coritiba on loan, and finally Adana Demirspor. He retired in 2020.
