Diogo Dalot earned praise from Cristiano Ronaldo (Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)
Manchester United star Diogo Dalot took a light-hearted dig at Portugal team-mate Cristiano Ronaldo for ‘always being on his phone’ following his brutal criticism of youngsters at Old Trafford.
Ronaldo, 38, left United last December after an explosive interview with Piers Morgan in which he took aim at Erik ten Hag, the Glazers and his United team-mates.
The former Real Madrid forward said the younger generation ‘don’t care’ and they are distracted by ‘new technologies’.
‘Their hunger [is different]. I think they have things more easily, everything’s easy, they don’t suffer – and they don’t care,’ said Ronaldo.
‘I don’t mean only a few in Manchester United, but all the teams in all leagues in the world, the youngsters are not the same of my generation. But you cannot blame them, because it’s part of the life and the new generation, the new technologies that distract them.
‘It doesn’t surprise me. But in the same way it’s a shame because if they have the best examples in front of your eyes, and if they don’t at least copy what you did.
Ronaldo took aim at United youngsters (Picture: Getty)
When Ronaldo was asked to single out players in United’s squad that shared his mentality, he chose cited Dalot as an exception.
‘In Manchester United I can mention Dalot, he’s young, but very professional but I don’t doubt that he’s going to have longevity in football because he’s young, he’s smart, intelligent and he’s very professional.’
Dalot linked up with Ronaldo this week for Portugal’s European Championship qualifiers against Slovakia and Bosnia & Herzegovina.
And, in a clear nod to Ronaldo’s previous criticism of the younger generations at United, Dalot joked that the veteran is ‘always on his phone’.
Dalot’s Instagram story (Picture: Instagram)
‘This new generation always on the phone,’ joked Dalot.
The defender accompanied the comment with a string of emojis to illustrate that he was joking, before tagging Ronaldo in the post.
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