"To be the best, you need the best"
About this Quote
The subtext is both practical and political. On the practical side, it's training partners who don't let you coast, coaches who correct your worst habits, medical and recovery infrastructure that keeps a body usable through a brutal calendar. On the political side, it's a justification for ambition that can look, from the outside, like entitlement: top clubs, top wages, top teammates. If you're chasing the summit, why pretend you can do it with midtable inputs?
Context matters because Ronaldo's career is essentially a case study in curated excellence. From Sporting to Manchester United to Real Madrid to Juventus, he's moved through institutions engineered to compete for trophies, while also relentlessly upgrading the people and systems around him. The quote quietly defends that pattern. It also doubles as a challenge to young players: stop romanticizing struggle as a virtue. Find environments that demand more than you currently have.
There is a harder edge, too: if you're not surrounded by the best, maybe you don't truly want to be the best. It's an aspirational sentence with a gatekeeping shadow, perfectly in tune with modern sport where performance is personal, but success is increasingly industrial.
Quote Details
| Topic | Motivational |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Featured | This quote was our Quote of the Day on March 21, 2023 |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Ronaldo, Cristiano. (2026, January 11). To be the best, you need the best. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/to-be-the-best-you-need-the-best-172096/
Chicago Style
Ronaldo, Cristiano. "To be the best, you need the best." FixQuotes. January 11, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/to-be-the-best-you-need-the-best-172096/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"To be the best, you need the best." FixQuotes, 11 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/to-be-the-best-you-need-the-best-172096/. Accessed 24 Feb. 2026.










