Tennis star Andy Murray would have Juventus’ Gianluigi Buffon in his world XI, but backs Cristiano Ronaldo for player of the year.
The Scotsman is a keen football fan, having grown up supporting Hibernian, and he was asked by FIFA to name his best XI of the year, which included three Bianconeri, with Paulo Dybala and Giorgio Chiellini also getting the nod.
Tennis star Andy Murray would have Juventus’ Gianluigi Buffon in his world XI, but backs Cristiano Ronaldo for player of the year.
The Scotsman is a keen football fan, having grown up supporting Hibernian, and he was asked by FIFA to name his best XI of the year, which included three Bianconeri, with Paulo Dybala and Giorgio Chiellini also getting the nod.
“Gianluigi Buffon; Dani Alves, Sergio Ramos, Giorgio Chiellini, Marcelo; N’golo Kante, Toni Kroos, Luka Modric; Paulo Dybala, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi,” Murray replied when asked for his World XI.
“Player of the year? It has to be Cristiano Ronaldo at number one. He won La Liga and the Champions League, and scored a crazy amount of goals in both competitions to help his team get there.
“It has to be Cristiano Ronaldo at number one. He won La Liga and the Champions League, and scored a crazy amount of goals in both competitions to help his team get there.
“As for the Coach, it’s difficult to look past Zinedine Zidane at Real Madrid: league winners, Champions League winners and also the first club to win the latter back-to-back.
“That kind of performance doesn’t happen by accident and takes a special kind of manager to be able to motivate your players week in, week out to sustain that level of performance.”
Murray moved to Barcelona in his teens to pursue his tennis career, and would watch matches at Camp Nou.
“My friends and I would go a lot as teenagers, and we saw some great matches. One that stands out in my memory, is when we saw Barcelona against Milan in the Champions League in the 2004-05 season.
“Ronaldinho scored one of the best goals I’ve ever seen live, people still talk about that goal.”