{"id":136885,"date":"2019-07-19T12:38:29","date_gmt":"2019-07-19T11:38:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=136885"},"modified":"2019-07-19T12:39:08","modified_gmt":"2019-07-19T11:39:08","slug":"transfer-de-ligt-speaks-on-cristaino-ronaldos-role-in-his-move-to-juventus-being-under-pressure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=136885","title":{"rendered":"Transfer: De Ligt speaks on Cristaino Ronaldo’s role in his move to Juventus, being under pressure"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Juventus latest signing, Matthijs de Ligt on Friday disclosed that he made up his mind to join the Serie A champions even before Cristiano Ronaldo asked him about a potential move to Italy.<\/p>\n

De Ligt said this while speaking with reporters in his first news conference as Juve player, NAN reports.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cAfter the final I was already sure I wanted to join Juve \u2026 it was a big compliment to have Ronaldo ask me to join \u2026 but it didn\u2019t make the difference.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spoke to (manager) Maurizio Sarri just to get to know each other. He was one of the reasons I wanted to join here, I\u2019ve heard a lot of good things about him and I like his footballing philosophy and how he prepares his defence.\u201d<\/p>\n

De Ligt, who captained his former club in their thrilling run to the Champions League semi-finals last season, said he did not feel any additional pressure after becoming one of the most expensive defenders in the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cPressure is normal in football. For me, it\u2019s not a problem. I\u2019ll show what I\u2019m capable of on the pitch.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m 19, I can still improve and I want to do that. It\u2019s important to work hard every day and to learn and I hope to become a better player.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJuventus is a great forward step for me. In Holland there\u2019s a lot of building from the back and defending high up the pitch. Italy is more about zonal marking and defending together, I think that Juve can help me and I can help them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Juventus announced the signing of the 19-year-old on Thursday, landing one of the most sought-after young players in world soccer from Ajax Amsterdam for 75 million euros (67 million pounds).<\/p>\n

The Netherlands international said last month that he had been asked by Portugal\u2019s Ronaldo following the Nations League final about linking up in Turin.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Juventus latest signing, Matthijs de Ligt on Friday disclosed that he made up his mind to join the Serie A champions even before Cristiano Ronaldo asked him about a potential move to Italy. De Ligt said this while speaking with reporters in his first news conference as Juve player, NAN reports. He said: \u201cAfter the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":129120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[4680,12144],"class_list":["post-136885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-juventus","tag-matthijs-de-ligt"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=136885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/129120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=136885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=136885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=136885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}