Marco Verratti Has A Very Different Lifestyle To Your Typical Footballer

"I knew Verratti was an excellent player," he said after PSG secured a 1-0 win against Los Blancos after a late Kylian Mbappe winner. "But I didn't realise he was so spectacular.

French football journalist Julien Laurens once made that very comparison and questioned what the Italian could achieve if he had matched five-time Ballon d'Or winner Ronaldo's lifestyle.

In an interview with BBC 5 Live Sport in 2019, shortly after Verratti produced a fine individual display for PSG in their 2-0 win over Manchester United in the Champions League, Laurens gave an insight into his lifestyle.

He claimed that the former Pescara midfielder smokes, drinks and is out almost every day of the week.

He said: "For me Verratti, because he was not fit, because he was not 100 per cent, because he's only played one game in the last month.

"Last week he was partying until 6am for Neymar's birthday, because he smokes, because he drinks because he's out almost every day of the week.

"I think if he had the lifestyle of Cristiano Ronaldo, for example, the work ethic of him, I don't where he would be in terms of world-class midfielders.

"But the ability he has combined with the lifestyle that he has at the moment and yet still being able to put out a performance like tonight is just incredible.”

Verratti, who married French model girlfriend Jessica Aidi last year, has been open about his lifestyle down the years.

“We play football, but sometimes people forget that we are also human beings. We get days off, we can go out with our friends, with family," he said In an interview with Le Parisien in 2019.

“What I hate is when people have unchangeable ideas of me. But honestly, I don’t really care. Everyone is free to think what they want. You can judge me on the