His “knuckle balling’ technique for long range free-kicks have been adopted by some of the present day stars like Didider Drogba and Cristiano Ronaldo, not many have been able to master the method as much as the exponent himself.
“When I played at Lyon, it helped me very much to be good free-kick player. In this moment also, there are Brazilian players who are on top like Ronaldinho and Roberto Carlos as they have the talent and the quality. But you will see that there are a lot of players who are also good.
“Cristiano Ronaldo is also a good player and shoots very well. He is one of the best players to shoot free-kick in the world now,” opined Juninho who now plies his trade in the Qatar Stars League (QSL) with Al Gharafa.
In his very first season with the Qatari club, he helped them on to win the treble and was thus named the Player of the Year by the Qatar FA. But how long would it take for Qatar to match the standard of football played in Europe?
“They are looking to be more professional and have very evolved in the past few years. They are in the right direction but there is one big difference in the mentality especially on how they prepare to reach the level that they want.
“There is one something very important to support their ambition, which is World Cup 2022 and it will be their answer for what they looking for,” said the 36 year old.
Having spent the majority of his career at Olympique Lyonnais, the Brazilian gave his thoughts on the upcoming Champions League clash against Real Madrid, whom he labeled as the favourites to win the competition.
“Real Madrid are the favourites to win the Champions League this season. Lyon do have an psychological edge. In the past few years, Lyon have come up against Real Madrid and I believe they have an advantage for this as they know how to play against them.
That with Mourinho, he is a very good coach and so Real Madrid have become stronger. The match against Real Madrid will be good as they (Lyon) know how to face them,” said Juninho. (goal)