Baptista: Ronaldo sacked me - but he's been excellent for Real Valladolid

Julio Baptista insists there's no grudge with former Real Madrid teammate Ronaldo.

After five years as Real Valladolid B coach, Baptista was sacked by club owner Ronaldo before Christmas.

He told Marca: "I want to continue training, have an opportunity to continue demonstrating little by little and be known little by little in the world of benches. I want to continue 'on the wheel', do a good job and have people look at me favorably.

"Yes, I was in Valladolid for five seasons and I already have a clearer idea of how I want my teams to play, and make the players evolve. The good work that has been done in Valladolid has been little publicised: we brought out more than 15 players, who we have made their debut with the first team; The sale of Fresneda (Sporting de Portugal) was, in part, because we did many things with him for the club; we ended up winning the League in the Honor Division; Then, it is true that three years of a more complicated process came in the subsidiary.

"We had a decline, but we had a budget that went from four million to one million. And the idea of the 'presi' was to get the young people out, with a team with an average age of 20-21 years. And that penalized us this last year, with a super young team. But now I feel prepared for any adventure I may face.

"What he (Ronaldo) has done as president has been little exposed. How much he has done has not been communicated. If they had done it, people would love him so much more. His achievements are not known on the street. In these five or six years, many good things have been done. Now it is a solvent, stable club, but it is not easy to keep it in the Primera Division always."

Asked about talk of Ronaldo selling, Baptista added: "I don't know what his idea is. If Valladolid gets promoted... He sold Cruzeiro in Brazil, but now I don't know if Valladolid will also be sold."