Tinnerholm says no to Ronaldo’s shirt

Published 10/01/2015, 6:22 AM EDT

MALMO (Reuters) – Most players are keen to swap shirts with Cristiano Ronaldo, but not Malmo defender Anton Tinnerholm who insists his club’s heavenly blue jersey is “the finest” following their 2-0 Champions League defeat to Real Madrid.

Despite his best efforts, the full back couldn’t stop Ronaldo from scoring twice in their Group A meeting in Sweden to join Raul as the club’s top scorer.

“We had talked about making it tough for them when they came here,” said Tinnerholm, who won his first battle with Ronaldo just 10 seconds in and played a major role in ensuring Ronaldo had one of his queiter nights.

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But it wasn’t enough to stop him from scoring his 322nd and 323rd goals for Real Madrid to equal Raul’s record.

“Ronaldo wasn’t that visible but he scored two goals,” Tinnerholm sighed. “That says something about how good he is.”

Asked if he had swapped shirts with his opponent afterwards, Tinnerholm gave an answer that will be music to the ears of the 24,000 fans that packed the Swedbank Stadium and roared their team on from start to finish.

“No, the finest shirt is the Malmo shirt,” he told reporters.

(Reporting by Philip O’Connor; Editing by Sudipto Ganguly)

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Dhruv George is a senior Formula One and NASCAR analyst for EssentiallySports, having authored nearly 12000 articles spanning different sports like F1, NASCAR, Tennis, NFL, and eSports. He graduated with a PG Diploma in Journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications. Dhruv has also conducted interviews with F1 driver Pierre Gasly and Moto2 rider Tony Arbolino.