Cristiano Ronaldo is confident Serie A giants Juventus will win the Champions League, insisting “it’s coming”.
After eight successive Serie A titles, Juve are eyeing European glory following five runners-up medals since their last Champions League triumph in 1996.
Most recently, Juventus have been runners-up to Barcelona in 2015 as well as Ronaldo’s own Madrid side in 2017, with the Portuguese netting a brace in the final.
Ronaldo – a five-time Champions League winner who celebrated four titles with Real Madrid – was unable to help Juve past the quarter-finals in his first season last term.
The Italian side fell to Ajax in the quarter-final round after the Dutch side topped Ronaldo’s former club Real Madrid in the Round of 16.
However, while the forward admitted that he was unsure whether a triumph would come this year, Ronaldo believes Maurizio Sarri’s Juve are poised to conquer Europ and that it will happen sooner rather than later.
“After winning what I won at Madrid I needed a change and new motivation,” Ronaldo told Marca.
“I still have the strength to keep winning.
“Juventus will win the Champions League. I don’t know if it’ll be this year or the next, but it’s coming.”
Ronaldo was speaking after receiving the prestigious Marca Leyenda award “for his successful career as a professional footballer and for the standing he has attained across the world.”
The 34-year-old superstar made a seamless transition from Madrid to Juve, helping the Italian giants to their eighth successive Serie A crown in 2018-19.
The veteran scored 28 goals in all competitions last season, 21 of those coming in the league.
Ronaldo also revealed on Monday that he hopes to someday return to Madrid, where he scored a whopping 450 goals in just 438 games for the Spanish giants during his time in the city.
Juventus are set to open the Serie A campaign against Parma on August 25 for the first match of the club’s title defence before taking on Napoli in the second week in Sarri’s first match against his former club.
Before that, though, Juventus are set to face Atletico Madrid on Saturday as the club looks to continue pre-season preparations in Sweden at the Friends Arena in Stockholm.
